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  • PhysRevLett.114.166803

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Effect of chiral symmetry on chaotic scattering from Majorana zero modes

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Article number166803
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>24/04/2015
<mark>Journal</mark>Physical review letters
Issue number16
Volume114
Number of pages6
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

In many of the experimental systems that may host Majorana zero modes, a so-called chiral symmetry exists that protects overlapping zero modes from splitting up. This symmetry is operative in a superconducting nanowire that is narrower than the spin-orbit scattering length, and at the Dirac point of a superconductor-topological insulator heterostructure. Here we show that chiral symmetry strongly modifies the dynamical and spectral properties of a chaotic scatterer, even if it binds only a single zero mode. These properties are quantified by the Wigner-Smith time-delay matrix Q=−iℏS^†dS/dE, the Hermitian energy derivative of the scattering matrix, related to the density of states by ρ=(2πℏ)^−1TrQ. We compute the probability distribution of Q and ρ, dependent on the number ν of Majorana zero modes, in the chiral ensembles of random-matrix theory. Chiral symmetry is essential for a significant ν dependence.

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