Microwave irradiation in topological superconducting systems

Microwave spectroscopy is an important tool for probing and manipulating qubits and superconducting systems. It has been used to investigate the Andreev spectrum of topological Josephson Junction (JJ) systems[1,2] and to implement qubit gates and readout[3]. With Majorana bound states (MBS) in topological superconductors a possible implementation of fault-tolerant qubits, it is important to understand exactly how MBS interact with light. Theoretical approaches include the Jaynes-Cummings model, which captures orbital-to-orbital excitations in a spin- and momentum-agnostic manner, and free-electron-like models, which can describe spin- and momentum-conserving scattering processes yet may have difficulty capturing edge effects. We extend these models by deriving an effective photon-Majorana interaction, focusing on the effects of microwave irradiation on the MBS appearing at the boundaries of topological superconducting systems.

[1] B. Pekerten, D. S. Brandão, B. Bussiere, D. Monroe, T. Zhou, J. E. Han, J. Shabani, A. Matos-Abiague, I. Žutić, Appl. Phys. Lett. 124, 252602 (2024)

[2] B. Helba Elfeky, K. Dindial, D. S. Brandão, B. Pekerten, J. Lee, W. M. Strickland, P. J. Strohbeen, A. Danilenko, L. Baker, M. Mikalsen, W. Schiela, Z. Liang, J. Issokson, I. Levi, I. Žutić, J. Shabani, arXiv:2408.08487v1 (preprint)

[3] C. Rigetti, M. Devoret, Phys. Rev. B 81, 13450 (2010)