Thermoelectric effect in the Kondo dot side-coupled to a Majorana fermion

TL;DR

This paper studies the thermoelectric response of a quantum dot coupled to Majorana fermions, revealing distinct regimes and signatures that distinguish Majorana effects from ordinary fermions using numerical renormalization group analysis.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of thermoelectric conductance in a Majorana-coupled quantum dot, identifying unique features and regimes that serve as signatures of Majorana fermions.

Findings

Peak in thermoelectrical conductance at T ~ Γ_m in weak coupling

Shifted Kondo peak due to Majorana-induced Zeeman splitting in strong coupling

Additional peak at T ~ Γ'_m when two Majoranas interfere, causing non-monotonic behavior

Abstract

We investigate the linear thermoelectric response of an interacting quantum dot side-coupled by one of two Majorana fermions (MFs) formed at the ends of a topological superconducting wire. We employ the numerical renormalization group technique to obtain the thermoelectrical conductance $L$ as well as the electrical conductance $G$ when the background temperature $T$ and the dot gate are tuned. We distinguish two transport regimes in which $L$ displays different features: the weak- $(\Gamma_{m} < T_{K})$ and strong-coupling $(\Gamma_{m} > T_{K})$ regimes, where $\Gamma_{m}$ and $T_{K}$ are the Majorana-dot coupling and the Kondo temperature, respectively. For an ideal (infinitely long) nanowire where the Majorana end states do not overlap $(\epsilon_{m} = 0)$, the thermoelectrical conductance $L$ in the weak-coupling regime exhibits a peak at $T \sim \Gamma_{m}$. This peak is ascribed to the anti-Fano resonance between the asymmetric Kondo resonance and the zero-energy MF mode. Interestingly, in the strong-coupling regime, the Kondo-induced peak in $L$ is shifted due to the MF-induced Zeeman splitting in the dot. For finite but small $\epsilon_{m} > 0$, the interference between two MFs restores the Kondo effect in the dot in a smaller energy scale $\Gamma^{\prime}_{m}$ and gives rise to an additional peak in $L$ at $T \sim \Gamma^{\prime}_{m}$, whose sign is opposite to that at $T\sim\Gamma_{m}$. In the strong-coupling regime this additional peak can cause a non-monotonic behavior of $L$ with respect to the dot gate. Finally, we examine the case in which an ordinary spin-polarized fermion is coupled to the dot and identify the fingerprint of MFs by comparing two cases.