Accessing different topological classes and types of Majorana edge states in coupled superconducting platforms using perturbations

Abstract

The study of topological classes and their associated edge states has been of ongoing interest. In one dimension, the standard platform of these studies has been the conventional Kitaev wire and its realizations. In this work, we study the edge states in coupled p-wave platforms in 1D, in the presence of experimentally relevant perturbations, like a Zeeman field and s-wave SC. Firstly, we show that the unperturbed coupled p-wave setup by itself can have two types of Majorana edge states, depending on the value of the effective onsite potential. We show that additional components like Zeeman field and s-wave term can cause transitions to different symmetry classes, both topologically trivial or non-trivial, and change the nature of these edge states. In the presence of the perturbations, we show that there are 3 symmetry classes when the effective p-wave pairing is equal between the spin species, and 6 for the second kind, when the pairing differs by a phase $\pi$ between the two. Some of these classes are topologically non-trivial. Further, we explore the nature of subgap states when we have a junction between two such topological setups and their corresponding behaviour with the phase of the p-wave order parameter. Our work provides a theoretical framework of the different ways to get non-trivial topological classes in coupled p-wave nanowire setup, using experimentally feasible perturbations, and the nature of subgap states across junctions of these platforms.