Supersymmetry in the Majorana Cooper-pair box

Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.90.075408

Over the years, supersymmetric quantum mechanics has evolved from a toy model of high-energy physics to a field of its own. Although various examples of supersymmetric quantum mechanics have been found, systems that have a natural realization are scarce. Here, we show that the extension of the conventional Cooper-pair box by a 4π-periodic Majorana-Josephson coupling realizes supersymmetry for a certain characteristic ratio of the conventional Josephson to the Majorana-Josephson coupling strength. The supersymmetry we find is a “hidden” minimally bosonized supersymmetry that provides a nontrivial generalization of the supersymmetry of the free particle and relies crucially on the presence of an anomalous Josephson junction in the system. We show that the resulting degeneracy of the energy levels can be probed directly in a tunneling experiment and discuss the various transport signatures. An observation of the predicted level degeneracy would provide clear evidence for the presence of a Majorana-Josephson coupling of the characteristic strength.