Probing Majorana fermions in the tunneling spectra of a resonant level

Abstract

Unambiguous identification of Majorana physics presents an outstanding problem whose solution could render topological quantum computing feasible. We develop a numerical approach to treat finite-size superconducting chains supporting Majorana fermions, which is based on iterative application of a two-site Bogoliubov transformation. We demonstrate the applicability of the method by studying a resonant level attached to the superconductor subject to external perturbations. In the topological phase, we show that the spectrum of a single resonant level allows to distinguish peak coming from Majorana physics from the Kondo resonance.