Microwave detection of gliding Majorana zero modes in nanowires

Abstract

We study a topological superconducting nanowire that hosts gliding Majorana zero modes in the presence of a microwave cavity field. We show that the cavity decay rate depends on both the parity encoded by the Majorana zero modes and their motion, in the absence of any direct overlap of their wave functions. That is because the extended bulk states that overlap with both Majorana states facilitate their momentum-resolved microwave spectroscopy, with the gliding acting to modify the interference pattern via a momentum boost. Moreover, we demonstrate that these nonlocal effects are robust against moderate disorder in the chemical potential, and we confirm the numerical calculations with an analytical low-energy model. Our approach offers an alternative to tunneling spectroscopy to probe nonlocal features associated with the Majorana zero modes in nanowires.