Thermoelectric transport through Majorana bound states and violation of Wiedemann-Franz law

TL;DR

This paper investigates thermoelectric transport in a Kitaev chain with Majorana bound states, revealing a violation of the Wiedemann-Franz law and potential for thermoelectric detection of Majorana states.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of thermoelectric properties in Majorana hosting systems and identifies conditions for high thermoelectric efficiency and Wiedemann-Franz law violation.

Findings

Significant violation of Wiedemann-Franz law observed.

High thermoelectric efficiency near specific chemical potentials.

Distinct thermoelectric signatures for Majorana bound states.

Abstract

We study features of the thermoelectric transport through a Kitaev chain hosting Majorana bound states (MBS) at its ends. We describe the behavior of the Seebeck coefficient and the ZT figure of merit for two different configurations between MBS and normal current leads. We find an important violation of the Wiedemann-Franz law in one of these geometries, leading to sizeable values of the thermoelectric efficiency over a narrow window in chemical potential away from neutrality. These findings could lead to interesting thermoelectric-based MBSs detection devices, via measurements of the Seebeck coefficient and figure of merit.