Topologically protected charge transfer along the edge of a chiral p -wave superconductor

Abstract

The Majorana fermions propagating along the edge of a topological superconductor with px+ipy pairing deliver a shot noise power of 12×e2/h per eV of voltage bias. We calculate the full counting statistics of the transferred charge and find that it becomes trinomial in the low-temperature limit, distinct from the binomial statistics of charge-e transfer in a single-mode nanowire or charge-2e transfer through a normal-superconductor interface. All even-order correlators of current fluctuations have a universal quantized value, insensitive to disorder and decoherence. These electrical signatures are experimentally accessible, because they persist for temperatures and voltages large compared to the Thouless energy.