Majorana Fermion Induced Non-local Current Correlations in Spin-orbit Coupled Superconducting Wires

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Majorana fermions in spin-orbit coupled superconducting wires influence non-local current correlations, providing a method to distinguish topological Majorana states from trivial states through conductance and noise measurements.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical analysis of local and crossed Andreev reflections in a Majorana-hosting wire junction, proposing a way to unambiguously identify Majorana fermions via conductance and Fano factor signatures.

Findings

Conductance and Fano factors differ sharply from trivial cases.

Majorana states produce distinctive non-local current correlations.

Disorder does not obscure the Majorana-induced signatures.

Abstract

Recent observation of zero bias conductance peaks in semiconductor wire/superconductor heterostructures has generated great interest, and there is a hot debate on whether the observation is associated with Majorana fermions (MFs). Here we study the local and crossed Andreev reflections in a junction of two normal leads and a sandwiched superconductor-semiconductor wire with two spatially separated but strongly coupled MF end states. The conductance and Fano factors of such a device are sharply different from the topologically trivial case even in the presence of disorder, and can hence be used to identify MFs unambiguously.