Fresh look on finite-size effects in Majorana nanowires

The quest for the elusive Majorana zero mode (MZM) has puzzled theorists and experimentalists since its conception. In this work, we aim at investigating Kitaev - modeled nanowires and elucidating some misconceptions. Here we study finite-size effects in the presence of disorder and smooth-confining potentials. We numerically diagonalize the BdG Hamiltonian and explore different sets of parameters. In addition, we use the Green functions method to calculate the conductance. Our results show the emergence of MZMs in a preferred parameter regime, which may guide future experiments.