Reply to "Comment on 'Trivial Andreev Band Mimicking Topological Bulk Gap Reopening in the Nonlocal Conductance of Long Rashba Nanowires'"

TL;DR

This paper defends the validity of previous findings on nonlocal conductance in Rashba nanowires, clarifies misconceptions about disorder effects, and emphasizes the relevance of their minimal model to realistic devices.

Contribution

It clarifies the role of disorder in nonlocal conductance features and defends the applicability of their minimal model to real nanowire experiments.

Findings

Nonlocal conductance features are generally reduced by disorder.

The minimal model is relevant to current nanowire devices.

Disorder affects both trivial Andreev bands and topological gap signatures.

Abstract

In this Reply we respond to the comment by Das Sarma and Pan [1] on Hess et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 207001, "Trivial Andreev Band Mimicking Topological Bulk Gap Reopening in the Nonlocal Conductance of Long Rashba Nanowires" [2]. First, we note that Das Sarma and Pan reproduce the key results of Hess et al., substantiating that our findings are entirely valid. Next, we clarify the incorrect statement by Das Sarma and Pan that the main result of Hess et al. requires a "contrived periodic pristine system", pointing out the extensive discussion of positional disorder in the Hess et al. We also demonstrate that nonlocal conductance features are generically reduced by disorder. This applies to both an Andreev band and to a genuine topological bulk gap reopening signature (BRS). In fact, the suppression of nonlocal conductance of a genuine BRS by disorder was discussed in, e.g., Pan, Sau, Das Sarma, PRB 103, 014513 (2021) [3]. We conclude that, contrary to the claims of Das Sarma and Pan, the minimal model of Hess et al. is relevant to current realistic nanowire devices where only a few overlapping ABSs would be required to mimic a BRS.