Heat transport in Rashba nanowire-based Josephson junctions
Phys. Rev. B 114, 185407 – Published 3 September, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/nppx-k9lx
Abstract
We theoretically study the phase-dependent thermal conductance of a short Josephson junction based on a Rashba semiconducting nanowire with proximity-induced superconductivity. We show that an in-plane Zeeman field induces a quasicontinuum of states inside the superconducting gap, leading to a strong enhancement of the low-temperature thermal conductance. The thermal conductance exhibits a sharp peak precisely at the critical field that separates the trivial and topological superconducting phases, thereby serving as a sensitive probe of the topological phase transition. Moreover, when the Zeeman field acquires a component parallel to the Rashba spin-orbit field, the Andreev bound states experience a Doppler shift, giving rise to an anomalous phase-dependent thermal conductance. This Doppler shift is directly related to an effective finite-momentum pairing of Cooper pairs. Our results establish phase-coherent heat transport as an effective and complementary tool for detecting finite-momentum pairing and topological transitions in nanowire-based Josephson junctions.
