Splitting and oscillation of Majorana zero modes in the p-wave BCS-BEC evolution with plural vortices

TL;DR

This paper explores how vortex-vortex separation influences Majorana zero modes in p-wave superfluids near the BCS-BEC transition, revealing oscillatory behaviors and conditions for their realization through analytical and numerical methods.

Contribution

It demonstrates the impact of quasiparticle tunneling and quantum oscillations on Majorana modes, especially near the topological phase transition, using combined analytical and numerical approaches.

Findings

Quantum oscillations of low-lying spectra due to vortex tunneling.

Disappearance of oscillations near the BCS-BEC transition.

Majorana modes require vortex separation beyond a certain length scale.

Abstract

We investigate how the vortex-vortex separation changes Majorana zero modes in the vicinity of the BCS-BEC (Bose-Einstein condensation) topological phase transition of p-wave resonant Fermi gases. By analytically and numerically solving the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equation for spinless p-wave superfluids with plural vortices, it is demonstrated that the quasiparticle tunneling between neighboring vortices gives rise to the quantum oscillation of the low-lying spectra on the scale of the Fermi wavelength in addition to the exponential splitting. This rapid oscillation, which appears in the weak coupling regime as a consequence of quantum oscillations of quasiparticle wave functions, disappears in the vicinity of the BCS-BEC topological phase transition. This is understandable from that the wave function of the Majorana zero modes is described by the modified Bessel function in the strong coupling regime and thus it becomes spread over the vortex core region. Due to the exponential divergence of the modified Bessel function, the concrete realization of the Majorana zero modes near the topological phase transition requires the neighboring vortices to be separated beyond the length scale defined by the coherence length and the dimensionless coupling constant. All these behaviors are also confirmed by carrying out the full numerical diagonalization of the non-local Bogoliubov-de Gennes equation in a two dimensional geometry. Furthermore, this argument is expanded into the case of three-vortex systems, where a pair of core-bound and edge-bound Majorana states survive at zero energy state regardless of the vortex separation.