Phase-locked magnetoconductance oscillations as a probe of Majorana edge states

M. Diez, I. C. Fulga, D. I. Pikulin, M. Wimmer, A. R. Akhmerov, C. W. J. Beenakker

Published 2013-01-18, updated 2013-02-26Version 2

We calculate the Andreev conductance of a superconducting ring interrupted by a flux-biased Josephson junction, searching for electrical signatures of circulating edge states. Two-dimensional pair potentials of spin-singlet d-wave and spin-triplet p-wave symmetry support, respectively, (chiral) Dirac modes and (chiral or helical) Majorana modes. These produce h/e-periodic magnetoconductance oscillations of amplitude \simeq (e^{2}/h)N^{-1/2}, measured via an N-mode point contact at the inner or outer perimeter of the grounded ring. For Dirac modes the oscillations in the two contacts are independent, while for an unpaired Majorana mode they are phase locked by a topological phase transition at the Josephson junction.