Quasiparticle poisoning in trivial and topological Josephson junctions

We theoretically study a short single-channel Josephson junction between superconductors in the trivial and topological phases. The junction is assumed to be biased by a small current and subjected to quasiparticle poisoning. We find that the presence of quasiparticles leads to a voltage signal from the Josephson junction that can be observed both in the trivial and topological phases. Quite remarkably, these voltage signatures are sufficiently different in the two phases such that they can serve as means to clearly distinguish between trivial Andreev and topological Majorana bound states in the system. Moreover, these voltage signatures, in the trivial and topological phases, would allow one to directly measure the quasiparticle poisoning rates and test various approaches for protection against quasiparticle poisoning.