Majorana zero modes in a ladder of density-modulated Kitaev superconductor chains

We investigate the topological properties of a ladder model of the Kitaev superconductor chains with a periodically modulated chemical potential. It is found that the system has two different topological classes, the class BDI characterized by the Z index and the class D characterized by the Z2 index. The topological class of the system is determined by the relative phase θ between the inter- and intra-chain superconducting pairing. Based on the calculation of the topological numbers of the class BDI and the class D, we present the topological phase diagrams of the system for two different topological classes. It is shown that the topological phase transition accompanying the variation of the number of Majorana zero modes could be induced by periodical potential in both two classes. Finally, we calculate the differential conductance of normal metal-superconductor junction at zero bias, and find that it matches the topological phase diagrams in both class BDI and class D.