Limits of Thermal Conductance Quantization in Chiral Topological Josephson Junctions

Abstract

We investigate thermal and non-local electrical transport in four-terminal Josephson junctions formed by a normal region coupled to two transverse chiral superconducting leads, supporting phases characterized by Chern numbers $\mathcal{C}=0,1$\,and\,2. We identify the conditions under which a single chiral Majorana mode ($\mathcal{C}=1$) produces a robust half-quantized thermal conductance, while non-local electrical conductance remains strongly suppressed by particle-hole symmetry. Thermal conductance quantization occurs near a superconducting phase difference $\pi$, but only in the low-doping regime of the central region and in the intermediate- to long-junction limits. At finite Zeeman fields, the thermal response broadly follows the topology of the isolated superconducting leads for the $C=1$ phase while, in the $\mathcal{C}=2$ phase, the thermal conductance generally deviates from quantization, depending on the momentum-space location of the Majorana modes. Our results establish clear criteria for probing chiral Majorana modes in Josephson junctions and highlight the essential role of momentum-space structure, finite-size geometry, and sample parameters in thermal transport.

12 pages, 12 figures

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