Phase diagram and quantum transport in a semiconductor-superconductor hybrid nanowire with long-range pairing interactions

Abstract

We investigate the effect of long-range pairing interactions on the phase diagram and the quantum transport properties in a semiconductor-superconductor hybrid nanowire. Both the power-law and exponential decay rates of long-range pairing are considered for comparison. It is found that a long-range topological phase hosting massive edge modes is induced when the exponent of the power-law decay is less than one. By diagonalizing the tight-binding model, we find that near-zero-energy Andreev bound states (ABSs) could be induced in the topologically trivial phase for slowly decayed long-range pairing interactions. For a one-dimensional long-range Kitaev chain, the shot noise is suggested to serve as a probe to discriminate Majorana bound states (MBSs) and topological massive modes. Our numerical results indicate that for realistic device parameters, the Fano factor of the shot noise is irrelevant to the topological property of the system, and it fails to distinguish the MBSs and ABSs. However, the noise Fano factor is generally consistent with the variation of the bound state energy, which can be used to detect the energy splitting of these bound states.