Domain wall in a chiral p-wave superconductor: Majorana fermions and their transport properties

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• Dr Benjamin Beri, University of Cambridge
• Thursday 11 November 2010, 14:15-15:15
• TCM Seminar Room, Cavendish Laboratory.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Joe Bhaseen.

Superconductors with p+ip pairing symmetry are characterized by chiral edge states. These states are difficult to detect in equilibrium since the resulting magnetic field is screened by the Meissner effect. Nonequilibrium detection is hindered by the fact that the edge excitations are unpaired Majorana fermions, which cannot transport charge near the Fermi level. In this talk, we consider the transport properties of a domain wall between regions with p_x+ip_y and p_x-ip_y pairing. In particular, we show that such a domain wall configuration allows one to overcome the difficulties arising from the “neutrality” of Majorana modes, and find signatures of the edge states in charge transport. In addressing the effect of disorder on the transport properties, we put the domain wall problem in a more general context, and briefly discuss some recent developments regarding the random matrix theory of quantum transport in chaotic superconducting structures.

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