2015/07/31 by Chris Pedder, Chris J. Pedder, Pedder, Chris J. +6 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #82D77 #FOS: Physical sciences #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Topological Materials and Phenomena #cond-mat.mes-hall #msc:82D77
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1507.08881
13 pages, 5 figures
openalex publication_date 2015/07/31 · arxiv created 2016/02/08 · arxiv updated 2016/02/09 · openalex created_date 2024/04/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We demonstrate the appearance of zero-energy bound states satisfying the ℤ4 parafermionic algebra in interacting quantum wires with Rashba spin-orbit coupling and proximity-induced superconductivity. The fourfold degeneracy of these states is protected by time-reversal symmetry and fermion-parity conservation, and leads to an 8 π periodicity of the Josephson current due to the tunneling of fractionalized excitations with charge e/2. Even in the presence of perturbations, we propose that this periodicity will remain visible in driven, current-biased Shapiro step measurements on current state-of-the-art Rashba wires.