Manipulating Majorana Fermions in Quantum Nanowires with Broken Inversion Symmetry

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that applying a supercurrent can restore the topological phase in a Majorana-carrying quantum wire with broken inversion symmetry, enabling potential advances in topological quantum computing.

Contribution

It introduces a method to recover Majorana modes via supercurrent in a broken-inversion-symmetry wire, confirmed through bosonization and linked to doped Mott-insulator physics.

Findings

Supercurrent restores topological phase in quantum wires.

Majorana end-states can be manipulated with supercurrent.

Results applicable to topological quantum computation.

Abstract

We study a Majorana-carrying quantum wire, driven into a trivial phase by breaking the spatial inversion symmetry with a tilted external magnetic field. Interestingly, we predict that a supercurrent applied in the proximate superconductor is able to restore the topological phase and therefore the Majorana end-states. Using Abelian bosonization, we further confirm this result in the presence of electron-electron interactions and show a profound connection of this phenomenon to the physics of a one-dimensional doped Mott-insulator. The present results have important applications in e.g., realizing a supercurrent assisted braiding of Majorana fermions, which proves highly useful in topological quantum computation with realistic Majorana networks.