Accidental zero modes in a multiorbital superconductor with spin-orbital coupling 

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  • 1. National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures & Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China;  2. Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing 210093, China

Received date: 2025-09-08

  Revised date: 2025-09-19

  Accepted date: 2025-10-01

  Online published: 2025-10-20

Supported by

National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2022YFA1403201) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 12374147, 12274205 and 92365203). 

Abstract

The Majorana zero modes in vortex cores are of extensive interest in the context of topological quantum computing. However, a zero-energy bound state may arise accidentally but is not necessarily a Majorana zero mode. Such accidental zero modes should be carefully ruled out in experiment in order to identify the genuine Majorana zero modes. We show that in a spin-orbital coupled multi-band superconductor, such as the iron-selenide superconductor, accidental zero modes indeed arise in the vortex core if the pairing symmetry is the so-called nodeless d-wave (defined in the absence of spin-orbital coupling). Instead, if the pairing symmetry is s++ or s± with respect to the Fermi pockets split by the spin-orbital coupling, the accidental zero modes do not appear in the limit of weak spin-orbital coupling. Our results are not only important in the experimental identification of Majorana zero modes, but also provide an avenue to pinpoint the pairing symmetry of the iron-selenide superconductor. 

Cite this article

XIANG Ke, WANG Da , WANG Qianghua . Accidental zero modes in a multiorbital superconductor with spin-orbital coupling [J]. Progress in Physics, 2025 , 45(5) : 250 -259 . DOI: 10.13725/j.cnki.pip.2025.05.003

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