Motivated by recent experiments, we investigate the excitation energy of a proximitized Rashba wire in the presence of a position dependent pairing. In particular, we focus on the spectroscopic pattern produced by the overlap between two Majorana bound states that appear for values of the Zeeman field smaller than the value necessary for reaching the bulk topological superconducting phase. The two Majorana bound states can arise because locally the wire is in the topological regime. We find three parameter ranges with different spectral properties: crossings, anticrossings and asymptotic reduction of the energy as a function of the applied Zeeman field. Interestingly, all these cases have already been observed experimentally. Moreover, since an increment of the magnetic field implies the increase of the distance between the Majorana bound states, the amplitude of the energy oscillations, when present, gets reduced. The existence of the different Majorana scenarios crucially relies on the fact that the two Majorana bound states have distinct k-space structures. We develop analytical models that clearly explain the microscopic origin of the predicted behavior.

Spin-momentum locking in a semiconductor device with strong spin-orbit coupling (SOC) is thought to be an important prerequisite for the formation of Majorana bound states 1-3 . Such a helical state is predicted in one-dimensional (1D) nanowires subject to strong Rashba SOC and spin-mixing 4 -its hallmark being a characteristic re-entrant behaviour in the conductance. Here, we report direct experimental observations of the re-entrant conductance feature, which reveals the formation of a helical liquid, in the lowest 1D subband of an InAs nanowire. Surprisingly, the feature is very prominent also in the absence of magnetic fields. This behaviour suggests that exchange interactions have a substantial impact on transport in our device. We attribute the opening of the pseudogap to spin-flipping two-particle backscattering 5-7 . The all-electric origin of the ideal helical transport could have important implications for topological quantum computing.A 1D conductor with strong SOC is predicted 1,2,8 to represent a viable host for Majorana bound states. These zero-energy states feature characteristic non-Abelian exchange statistics 8 and can be created by mimicking spinless p-wave Cooper pairing using a semiconductor nanowire with a helical state and inducing s-wave superconductivity. InAs and InSb nanowires are promising host materials to explore the existence and nature of Majorana bound states 9,10 . To this end, it is essential to both establish transport in 1D subbands and induce a helical state in the nanowire. The usual mechanism that is considered to open a helical gap involves an external Zeeman field oriented perpendicular to the uniaxial spinorbit field 4 . The magnitude of the spin-orbit energy relative to the Zeeman energy is partly responsible for the size of the topological energy gap that will protect the zero-energy Majorana modes 11 . However, Oreg et al. 2,12 and Stoudenmire et al. 13 have pointed out that such an energy gap can also result from strong electronic correlations. Several mechanisms have been proposed along these lines: for example, spin-flipping two-particle backscattering 7 and hyperfine interaction between nuclear spins and a Luttinger liquid 14 , both of which can open a gap. The latter mechanism has been invoked to explain a conductance reduction by a factor of two at low temperatures in a GaAs quantum wire 15 , but no re-entrant behaviour is predicted within this framework.Other than Quay et al. 3 , we report on a re-entrant conductance feature in the lowest subbands of InAs nanowire quantum point contacts (QPCs), which offer the desired strong SOC (see Supplementary Section 1). Moreover, our proposed spin-mixing mechanism does not necessarily rely on external time-reversal symmetry-breaking terms: while the effect is pronounced in the presence of an external magnetic field, it persists also in its absence. Guided by the observation 16 of the Landé g factor enhancement for the lowest subband 17 and by signatures of the 0.7 anomaly 18 , we identify the important role of exchange int...

Electrical currents in a quantum spin Hall insulator are confined to the boundary of the system. The charge carriers can be described as massless relativistic particles, whose spin and momentum are coupled to each other. While the helical character of those states is by now well established experimentally, it is a fundamental open question how those edge states interact with each other when brought in spatial proximity. We employ a topological quantum point contact to guide edge channels from opposite sides into a quasi-onedimensional constriction, based on inverted HgTe quantum wells. Apart from the expected quantization in integer steps of 2e 2 /h, we find a surprising additional plateau at e 2 /h. We explain our observation by combining band structure calculations and repulsive electron-electron interaction effects captured within the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid model. The present results may have direct implications for the study of one-dimensional helical electron quantum optics, Majorana-and potentially para-fermions. The quantum spin Hall effect has been predicted in several systems [1][2][3][4] and was first realized in HgCdTe/HgTe quantum wells [5]. Later, this phase was observed in other material systems such as InAs/GaSb double quantum wells [6] and in monolayers of WTe 2 and bismuthene [7,8]. The defining properties of this state, related to its helical nature, are well established by numerous experiments such as the observation of conductance quantization of two spin polarized edge channels G 0 = 2e 2 /h with e the electron charge and h the Planck's constant [5]. Additionally, non-local edge transport and spin-polarization of the edge channels were demonstrated by suitable transport experiments [9,10]. We instead target a still open question, namely how helical edge states interact with each other.A quantum point contact (QPC) can be used to guide * All three authors contributed equally to this work, email: Jonas.Strunz@physik.uni-wuerzburg.de edge channels from opposite boundaries of the sample into a constriction. Such a device allows for studies of charge and spin transfer mechanisms by, e.g., adjusting the overlap of the edge states [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Besides the general interest in the study of transport processes in such a device, the appropriate model to describe the essential physics and to capture interaction effects of helical edge states is still unclear. The one-dimensionality of the helical edge modes suggests a description in terms of the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid when electron-electron interactions are taken into account. In this respect, the QPC setup provides an illuminating platform as it may give rise to particular backscattering processes.We present the realization of a QPC based on HgTe quantum wells as evidenced by the observation of the expected conductance steps in integer values of G 0 . The newly developed lithographic process allows the fabrication of sophisticated nanostructures based on topological materials without lowering the material quality. It t...

We evaluate the spin density oscillations arising in quantum spin Hall quantum dots created via two localized magnetic barriers. The combined presence of magnetic barriers and spin-momentum locking, the hallmark of topological insulators, leads to peculiar phenomena: a half-integer charge is trapped in the dot for antiparallel magnetization of the barriers, and oscillations appear in the in-plane spin density, which are enhanced in the presence of electron interactions. Furthermore, we show that the number of these oscillations is determined by the number of particles inside the dot, so that the presence or the absence of the fractional charge can be deduced from the in-plane spin density. We show that when the dot is coupled with a magnetized tip, the spatial shift induced in the chemical potential allows to probe these peculiar features.