Impurity- and Magnetic-field-induced Quasiparticle States in Chiral $p$-wave Superconductors

Abstract

Both impurity- and magnetic-field-induced quasiparticle states in chiral $p$-wave superconductors are investigated theoretically by solving the Bogoliubov--de Gennes equations self-consistently. At the strong scattering limit, we find that a universal state bound to the impurity can be induced for both a single nonmagnetic impurity and a single magnetic impurity. Furthermore, we find that different chiral order parameters and the corresponding supercurrents have uniform distributions around linear impurities. Calculations of the local density of states in the presence of an external magnetic field show that the intensity peak of the zero-energy Majorana mode in the vortex core can be enhanced dramatically by tuning the strength of the external magnetic field or pairing interaction.