Majorana-metal transition in a disordered superconductor: percolation in a landscape of topological domain walls

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • V. A. Zakharov - , Leiden University (Author)
  • I. C. Fulga - , Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden, Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat (Author)
  • G. Lemut - , Free University of Berlin (Author)
  • J. Tworzydło - , University of Warsaw (Author)
  • C. W.J. Beenakker - , Leiden University (Author)

Abstract

Most superconductors are thermal insulators. A disordered chiral p-wave superconductor, however, can make a transition to a thermal metal phase. Because heat is then transported by Majorana fermions, this phase is referred to as a Majorana metal. Here we present numerical evidence that the mechanism for the phase transition with increasing electrostatic disorder is the percolation of boundaries separating domains of different Chern number. We construct the network of domain walls using the spectral localizer as a ‘topological landscape function’, and obtain the thermal metal-insulator phase diagram from the percolation transition.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number033002
JournalNew journal of physics
Volume27
Issue number3
Publication statusPublished - 1 Mar 2025
Peer-reviewedYes

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Keywords

  • disordered p-wave superconductor, Majorana metal, spectral localizer