Probing Majorana edge states with a flux qubit

A pair of counterpropagating Majorana edge modes appears in chiral p-wave superconductors and in other superconducting systems belonging to the same universality class. These modes can be described by an Ising conformal field theory. We show how a superconducting flux qubit attached to such a system couples to the two chiral edge modes via the disorder field of the Ising model. Due to this coupling, measuring the backaction of the edge states on the qubit allows us to probe the properties of Majorana edge modes.