Presence versus absence of end-to-end nonlocal conductance correlations in Majorana nanowires: Majorana bound states versus Andreev bound states

Abstract

By calculating the differential tunneling conductance spectra from the two ends of a Majorana nanowire with a quantum dot embedded at one end, we establish that a careful examination of the nonlocal correlations of the zero bias conductance peaks, as measured separately from the two ends of the wire, can distinguish between topological Majorana bound states and trivial Andreev bound states. In particular, there will be identical correlated zero bias peaks from both ends for Majorana bound states, and thus the presence of correlated zero bias conductance from the two wire ends could imply the presence of topological Majorana zero modes in the system. On the contrary, there will not be identical correlated zero bias peaks from both ends for Andreev bound states, so the absence of correlated zero bias conductance from the two wire ends implies the absence of topological Majorana zero modes in the system. We present detailed results for the calculated conductance, energy spectra, and wavefunctions for different chemical potentials at the same magnetic field values to motivate end-to-end conductance correlation measurements in Majorana nanowires.