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Heat transport in Rashba nanowire-based Josephson junctions

Chuan-Shuai Huang*,†

  • *Contact author: 245748852@qq.com
  • †Present address: School of Optoelectronic Information Engineering, Shangrao Normal University, Shangrao 334001, China.
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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.

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Phys. Rev. B 114, 185407– Published 3 September, 2026
  • Received 21 May 2026
  • Revised 22 July 2026
  • Accepted 19 August 2026
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