Zeeman and spin-orbit effects in the Andreev spectra of nanowire junctions

Abstract

We study the energy spectrum and the electromagnetic response of Andreev bound states in short Josephson junctions made of semiconducting nanowires. We focus on the joint effect of Zeeman and spin-orbit coupling on the Andreev level spectra. Our model incorporates the penetration of the magnetic field in the proximitized wires, which substantially modifies the spectra. We pay special attention to the occurrence of fermion parity switches at increasing values of the field and to the magnetic field dependence of the absorption strength of microwave-induced transitions. Our calculations can be used to extract quantitative information from microwave and tunneling spectroscopy experiments, such as the recently reported measurements in Van Woerkom et al., arXiv:1609.00333.