Topologically induced fermion parity flips in superconductor vortices

A highlighting feature of Majorana bound states in two-dimensional topological superconductors is that they gain a phase factor of π upon being orbited by a vortex. This work focuses on the vortex degree of freedom itself and demonstrates that the change in the Majorana state is accompanied by a fermion parity change within the vortex. Such a parity flip is interpreted as a higher dimensional analog of the fermion parity pump mechanism in superconducting wires as well as through general topological arguments. It is demonstrated in terms of level crossings in three different situations: in (i) spin-triplet paired superconductors and in proximity-induced superconducting systems involving (ii) quantum spin Hall-ferromagnet hybrids and (iii) Chern insulators.