Parity-Controlled 2π Josephson Effect Mediated by Majorana Kramers Pairs

Abstract

We study a time-reversal-invariant topological superconductor island hosting spatially separated Majorana Kramers pairs, with weak tunnel couplings to two s-wave superconducting leads. When the topological superconductor island is in the Coulomb blockade regime, we predict that a Josephson current flows between the two leads due to a nonlocal transfer of Cooper pairs mediated by the Majorana Kramers pairs. Interestingly, we find that the sign of the Josephson current is controlled by the joint parity of all four Majorana bound states on the island. Consequently, this parity-controlled Josephson effect can be used for qubit readout in Majorana-based quantum computing.