Majorana quasiparticles of inhomogeneous Rashba chain
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Jakub Tworzydlo; Maciej M. Maśka; Anna Gorczyca-Goraj; Tadeusz Domański
- Source
- Subject
- Diagonal
FOS: Physical sciences
Zero-point energy
02 engineering and technology
01 natural sciences
Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
Chain (algebraic topology)
Quantum mechanics
Condensed Matter::Superconductivity
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
0103 physical sciences
Proximity effect (superconductivity)
Invariant (mathematics)
010306 general physics
Superconductivity
Physics
Condensed matter physics
Condensed Matter - Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Condensed Matter - Superconductivity
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn)
Condensed Matter - Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology
Condensed Matter::Mesoscopic Systems and Quantum Hall Effect
MAJORANA
Quasiparticle
0210 nano-technology
- Language
- English
We investigate the inhomogeneous Rashba chain coupled to a superconducting substrate, hosting the Majorana quasiparticles near its edges. We discuss its subgap spectrum and study how robust are the zero-energy quasiparticles against the diagonal and off-diagonal disorder. Studying the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ topological invariant we show that disorder induced transition from the topologically non-trivial to trivial phases is manifested by characteristic features in the spatially-resolved quasiparticle spectrum at zero energy. We provide evidence for the non-local nature of the zero-energy Majorana quasiparticles, that are well preserved upon partitioning the chain into separate pieces. Even though the Majorana quasiparticles are not completely immune to inhomogeneity we show that they can spread onto other (normal) nanoscopic objects via the proximity effect.
15 pages, 22 figures