Majorana Fermions in Chiral Topological Ferromagnetic Nanowires

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that multichannel ferromagnetic nanowires on spin-orbit coupled superconductors can host Majorana bound states, providing theoretical signatures and comparing with recent STM experiments, highlighting the need for lower temperatures for definitive detection.

Contribution

It generalizes previous models to show that non-trivial topological superconducting states with Majorana modes can occur without fine tuning in ferromagnetic nanowires on superconductors.

Findings

Majorana bound states can be realized in ferromagnetic nanowires on superconductors.

Theoretical STM signatures of Majorana modes are provided.

Experimental conditions need to be improved for clear detection.

Abstract

Motivated by a recent experiment in which zero-bias peaks have been observed in scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) experiments performed on chains of magnetic atoms on a superconductor, we show, by generalizing earlier work, that a multichannel ferromagnetic wire deposited on a spin-orbit coupled superconducting substrate can realize a non-trivial chiral topological superconducting state with Majorana bound states localized at the wire ends. The non-trivial topological state occurs for generic parameters requiring no fine tuning, at least for very large exchange spin splitting in the wire. We theoretically obtain the signatures which appear in the presence of an arbitrary number of Majorana modes in multi-wire systems incorporating the role of finite temperature, finite potential barrier at the STM tip, and finite wire length. These signatures are presented in terms of spatial profiles of STM differential conductance which clearly reveal zero energy Majorana end modes and the prediction of a multiple Majorana based fractional Josephson effect. A substantial part of this work is devoted to a detailed critical comparison between our theory and the recent STM experiment claiming the observation of Majorana fermions. The conclusion of this detailed comparison is that although the experimental observations are not manifestly inconsistent with our theoretical findings, the very small topological superconducting gap and the very high temperature of the experiment make it impossible to decisively verify the existence of a localized Majorana zero mode, as the spectral weight of the Majorana mode is necessarily spread over a very broad energy regime exceeding the size of the gap. Thus, although the experimental findings are indeed consistent with a highly broadened and weakened Majorana zero bias peak, much lower experimental temperatures are necessary for any definitive conclusion.