Supersymmetry in the Insulating Phase of a Chain of Majorana Cooper Pair Boxes

Abstract

The charging energy $U$ of a small superconducting island containing Majorana zero modes---a Majorana Cooper-pair box---induces interactions between the Majorana zero modes. Considering a chain of many such boxes, a topological superconductor-insulator transition occurs when $U$ is much larger than the transfer matrix element $t$ between the boxes. In this Letter, we focus on the insulting phases occurring in this regime. We show that there are several competing insulating phases, and that the transition between them is described by a supersymmetric field theory with a central charge $c=7/10$. We obtain this result by mapping the model to a spin-$1$ system and through a field theoretical approach. The microscopic model we propose consists of a chain of Majorana Cooper-pair boxes with \textit{local} tunneling between Majorana zero modes and \textit{local} charging energy terms, which can be controlled by gate potentials, thus making its realization more feasible.