Microwave Signature of Topological Andreev Level Crossings in a Bismuth-based Josephson Junction

Demonstrating the topological protection of Andreev states in Josephson junctions is an experimental challenge. In particular the telltale,4 pi periodicity expected for the current phase relation has remained elusive, because of fast parity breaking processes. It was predicted that low temperature ac susceptibility measurements could reveal the topological protection of quantum spin Hall edge states by probing their low energy Andreev spectrum at finite frequency. We have performed such a microwave probing of a phase biased Josephson junction built around a bismuth nanowire, a predicted second order topological insulator, and which was previously shown to host one-dimensional ballistic edge states. We find absorption peaks at the Andrecv level crossings, whose temperature and frequency dependencies point to protected topological crossings with an accuracy limited by the electronic temperature of our experiment.