Topological superconductors as nonrelativistic limits of Jackiw-Rossi and Jackiw-Rebbi models

Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. The MIT Faculty has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. We argue that the nonrelativistic Hamiltonian of p x + ip y superconductor in two dimensions can be derived from the relativistic Jackiw-Rossi model by taking the limit of large Zeeman magnetic field and chemical potential. In particular, the existence of a fermion zero mode bound to a vortex in the p x + ip y superconductor can be understood as a remnant of that in the Jackiw-Rossi model. In three dimensions, the nonrelativistic limit of the Jackiw-Rebbi model leads to a " p + is " superconductor in which spin-triplet p-wave and spin-singlet s-wave pairings coexist. The resulting Hamiltonian supports a fermion zero mode when the pairing gaps form a hedgehoglike structure. Our findings provide a unified view of fermion zero modes in relativistic ͑Dirac-type͒ and nonrelativistic ͑Schrödinger-type͒ superconductors.