2014/12/15 by Wen Huang, Samuel Lederer, Edward Taylor +1 · 3 citations
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Charge (physics) #Combinatorics #Condensed matter physics #Current (fluid) #Lattice (music) #MAJORANA #Mathematics #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum mechanics #Superconductivity #Topological Materials and Phenomena #Topological quantum number #Topology (electrical circuits) #Wave function #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.91.094507
published as Phys. Rev. B 91, 094507 (2015) · 11 pages, 5 figures
arxiv created 2014/12/15 · openalex publication_date 2015/03/12 · arxiv updated 2015/03/18 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
The edges of time-reversal symmetry breaking topological superconductors support chiral Majorana bound states as well as spontaneous charge currents. The Majorana modes are a robust, topological property, but the charge currents are nontopological---and therefore sensitive to microscopic details---even if we neglect Meissner screening. We give insight into the nontopological nature of edge currents in chiral p-wave superconductors using a variety of theoretical techniques, including lattice Bogoliubov--de Gennes equations, the quasiclassical approximation, and the gradient expansion, and we describe those special cases in which edge currents do have a topological character. While edge currents are not quantized, they are generically large, but they can be substantially reduced for a sufficiently anisotropic gap function, a scenario of possible relevance for the putative chiral p-wave superconductor Sr2RuO4.