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  • Letter

Majorana modes in a helical altermagnet without net magnetism and spin-orbit coupling

Xing-Jian Yi1,2, Yue Mao1, Cheng-Ming Miao1, and Qing-Feng Sun1,2,*

  • 1International Center for Quantum Materials, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
  • 2Hefei National Laboratory, Hefei 230088, China

  • *Contact author: sunqf@pku.edu.cn

Phys. Rev. B 113, L060408 – Published 18 February, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/gj6c-mcd2

Abstract

We propose a scheme to realize a topological superconductor and Majorana bound states (MBSs) in a one-dimensional metal nanowire on the surface of a helical altermagnet and in proximity to an s-wave superconductor, removing the requirement of conventional spin-orbit coupling and net magnetism. Through gauge transformation, we demonstrate that the helical frame naturally induces spin-momentum locking while the altermagnetism breaks time-reversal symmetry. The topological superconducting phase is well tuned by the chemical potential, altermagnet strength, and helical frequency. Furthermore, our transport calculation results reveal quantized conductance signatures: a 2e2/h zero-bias peak at the nanowire ends and a 4e2/h tunneling conductance at the domain wall of nanowires with opposite chirality, detected via a metal lead and scanning tunneling microscopy, respectively. Our research offers different perspectives on finding MBSs.

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