Majorana Fermions in Nodal Superconductors: Gapless Topological Phase

Abstract

We demonstrate that Majorana fermions exist in edges of systems and in a vortex core even for superconductors with nodal excitations such as the d-wave pairing state under a particular but realistic condition in the case with an anti-symmetric spin-orbit interaction and a nonzero magnetic field below the upper critical field. We clarify that the Majorana fermion state is topologically protected in spite of the presence of bulk gapless nodal excitations, because of the existence of a nontrivial topological number. Our finding drastically enlarges target systems where we can explore the Majorana fermion state.