Challenges in detecting topological superconducting transitions via supercurrent and phase probes in planar Josephson junctions

Topological superconductors harbor, at their boundaries and vortex cores, zero-energy Majorana bound states, which can be the building blocks in fault-tolerant topological quantum computing. Planar Josephson junctions host such topological superconducting phases, highly tunable by an external magnetic field or phase difference between the superconducting leads. Despite many theoretical and experimental studies, the signatures of the transition to a topological superconducting phase, based on minima in the critical supercurrent $I_c$ flowing across the junction, the 0-$\pi$ transition in the ground state junction phase and their anisotropic magnetic-field response have remained unsettled. Using rigorous numerical calculations with several experimentally relevant parameter settings, we show that $I_c$ and ${\phi }_{\mathrm{GS}}$ cannot indicate unambiguously a topological transition in any realistic planar junctions. Furthermore, the anisotropic variations of $I_c$ and ${\phi }_{\mathrm{GS}}$ with an in-plane magnetic field appear in junctions that are undoubtedly in a trivial superconducting phase, raising concerns on the effectiveness of these probes in identifying topological transitions in planar junctions. We discuss possible strategies to confirm a topological superconducting phase in these platforms.