Majorana bound states in topological insulators without a vortex

We consider a three-dimensional topological insulator (TI) wire with a nonuniform chemical potential induced by gating across the cross section. This inhomogeneity in chemical potential lifts the degeneracy between two one-dimensional surface state subbands. A magnetic field applied along the wire, due to orbital effects, breaks time-reversal symmetry and lifts the Kramers degeneracy at zero momentum. If placed in proximity to an s-wave superconductor, the system can be brought into a topological phase at relatively weak magnetic fields. Majorana bound states (MBSs), localized at the ends of the TI wire, emerge and are present for an exceptionally large region of parameter space in realistic systems. Unlike in previous proposals, these MBSs occur without the requirement of a vortex in the superconducting pairing potential, which represents a significant simplification for experiments. Our results open a pathway to the realization of MBSs in present-day TI wire devices.