Tip-Tuned Renormalization-Group Spectroscopy Unmasks a False-positive Topological Superconducting Vortex
arXiv:2607.25510
The authors use tip‑tuned scanning tunneling microscopy to induce a boundary renormalization‑group flow that turns a zero‑bias peak in a SrSn₃ vortex into a dip, demonstrating that the peak is a conventional vortex‑core state rather than a Majorana zero mode.
Abstract
Clean, nonsplit vortex zero-bias peaks (ZBPs) can be misinterpreted as Majorana zero modes (MZMs), making static scanning tunneling microscopy intrinsically ambiguous. Here we use the STM tip coupling to drive a local boundary-renormalization-group (boundary RG) flow, turning dynamical Coulomb blockade into a falsification test for Majorana-like ZBPs. Experimentally, in a thin film, normal-state spectra establish an Ohmic dissipative environment, and a common boundary-RG/thermodynamic-Bethe-ansatz analysis of the superconducting-gap and vortex-center spectra yields consistent dissipation strengths within the Majorana-filter regime. Lowering the tip nevertheless drives a clean, non-split vortex-center ZBP into a zero-bias dip, opposite to the protected flow of an isolated MZM, unmasking the peak as a Majorana false positive produced by a conventional vortex-core state. The same flow selectively suppresses the strongly tip-coupled channel, resolving the two-gap superconductivity. Dissipative STM thus tests dynamical protection rather than spectral appearance.
13 pages, 6 figures