Symmetry Reduction and Boundary Modes for Fe-Chains on an s-wave Superconductor

Abstract

We investigate the superconducting phase diagram and boundary modes for a quasi-1D system formed by three Fe-Chains on an s-wave superconductor, motivated by the recent Princeton experiment. The $\vec l\cdot\vec s$ onsite spin-orbit term, inter-chain diagonal hopping couplings, and magnetic disorders in the Fe-chains are shown to be crucial for the superconducting phases, which can be topologically trivial or nontrivial in different parameter regimes. For the topological regime a single Majorana and multiple Andreew bound modes are obtained in the ends of the chain, while for the trivial phase only low-energy Andreev bound states survive. Nontrivial symmetry reduction mechanism induced by the $\vec l\cdot\vec s$ term, diagonal hopping couplings, and magnetic disorder is uncovered to interpret the present results. Our study also implies that the zero-bias peak observed in the recent experiment may or may not reflect the Majorana zero modes in the end of the Fe-chains.