Quantized conductance at the Majorana phase transition in a disordered superconducting wire

Abstract

Superconducting wires without time-reversal and spin-rotation symmetries can be driven into a topological phase that supports Majorana bound states. Direct detection of these zero-energy states is complicated by the proliferation of low-lying excitations in a disordered multi-mode wire. We show that the phase transition itself is signaled by a quantized thermal conductance and electrical shot noise power, irrespective of the degree of disorder. In a ring geometry, the phase transition is signaled by a period doubling of the magnetoconductance oscillations. These signatures directly follow from the identification of the sign of the determinant of the reflection matrix as a topological quantum number.

7 pages, 4 figures; v3: added appendix with numerics for long-range disorder