Weyl superconductors

TL;DR

This paper explores Weyl superconductors, revealing how superconductivity modifies Weyl nodes, enabling control over topological phases and Majorana modes, with implications for experimental detection.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of Weyl superconductors, detailing how superconductivity splits Weyl nodes and allows independent control of Bogoliubov Weyl nodes and surface states.

Findings

Superconductivity splits Weyl nodes into Bogoliubov Weyl nodes.

Control over bulk Bogoliubov Weyl nodes and surface modes is possible.

Vortices trap Majorana modes under specific conditions.

Abstract

We study the physics of the superconducting variant of Weyl semimetals, which may be realized in multilayer structures comprising topological insulators and superconductors. We show how superconductivity can split each Weyl node into two. The resulting Bogoliubov Weyl nodes can be pairwise independently controlled, allowing to access a set of phases characterized by different numbers of bulk Bogoliubov Weyl nodes and chiral Majorana surface modes. We analyze the physics of vortices in such systems, which trap zero energy Majorana modes only under certain conditions. We finally comment on possible experimental probes, thereby also exploiting the similarities between Weyl superconductors and 2-dimensional p + ip superconductors.