Topological phases in the presence of disorder and longer-range couplings

TL;DR

This paper investigates how disorder and extended couplings influence the topological phases of one-dimensional superconductors, revealing that these factors can enhance topological regions and affect edge mode localization.

Contribution

It introduces an extended Kitaev chain model with long-range couplings and disorder, analyzing conditions for Majorana modes and their robustness in various disorder scenarios.

Findings

Disorder and long-range couplings can expand topological phases.

Majorana edge modes can remain localized with modified decay.

Correlated disorder may further enlarge topological regions.

Abstract

We study the combined effects of disorder and range of the couplings on the phase diagram of one-dimensional topological superconductors. We consider an extended version of the Kitaev chain where hopping and pairing terms couple many sites. Deriving the conditions for the existence of Majorana zero modes, we show that either the range and the on-site disorder can greatly enhance the topological phases characterized by the appearance of one or many Majorana modes localized at the edges. We consider both a discrete and a continuous disorder distribution. Moreover we discuss the role of correlated disorder which might further widen the topological regions. Finally we show that in the purely long-range regime and in the presence of disorder, the spatial decay of the edge modes remains either algebraic or exponential, with eventually a modified localization length, as in the absence of disorder.