Majorana fermions of a two-dimensional Px+iPy superconductor

• Main Authors: Kraus, Yaacov E., Auerbach, Assa, Fertig, H. A., Simon, Steven H.
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: arXiv 2009
• Subjects: Superconductivity cond-mat.supr-con; Strongly Correlated Electrons cond-mat.str-el; FOS Physical sciences; North Pole; South Pole; IPY; South pole
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.0904.2920; https://arxiv.org/abs/0904.2920

To investigate Majorana fermionic excitations of a $p_x+ip_y$ superconductor, the Bogoliubov-de-Gennes equation is solved on a sphere for two cases: (i) a vortex-antivortex pair at opposite poles and (ii) an edge near the south pole and an antivortex at the north pole. The vortex cores support a state of two Majorana fermions, the energy of which decreases exponentially with the radius of the sphere, independently of a moderate disorder potential. The tunneling conductance of an electron into the superconductor near the position of a vortex is computed for finite temperature, and is compared to the case of an {\it s}-wave superconductor. The zero bias conductance peak of the antivortex is half that of the vortex. This effect can be used as a probe of the order parameter symmetry, and as a direct measurement of the Majorana fermion. : 15 pages, 17 figures