Shot noise in a quantum dot system coupled with Majorana bound states

Abstract

We investigate the spectral density of shot noise and current for the system of a quantum dot coupled to Majorana bound states (MBS) employing the nonequilibrium Green’s function. The Majorana bound states at the end of the wire strongly affect the shot noise. There are two types of coupling in the system: dot–MBS and MBS–MBS coupling. The curves of shot noise and current versus coupling strength have novel steps owing to the energy-level splitting caused by dot–MBS coupling. The magnitude of these steps increases with the strength of dot–MBS coupling λ but decreases with the strength of MBS–MBS coupling. The steps shift toward the large ∣eV∣ region as λ or ϵM increases. In addition, dot–MBS coupling enhances the shot noise while MBS–MBS coupling suppresses the shot noise. In the absence of MBS–MBS coupling, a sharp jump emerges in the curve of the Fano factor at zero bias owing to the differential conductance being reduced by a factor of 1/2. This provides a novel technique for the detection of Majorana fermions.