  Majorana fermions (MFs) are exotic particles that are their own
anti-particles. Recently, the search for the MFs occurring as quasi-particle
excitations in solid-state systems has attracted widespread interest, because
of their fundamental importance in fundamental physics and potential
applications in topological quantum computation based on solid-state devices.
Here we study the quantum correlations between two spatially separate quantum
dots induced by a pair of MFs emerging at the two ends of a semiconductor
nanowire, in order to develop a new method for probing the MFs. We find that
without the tunnel coupling between these paired MFs, quantum entanglement
cannot be induced from an unentangled (i.e., product) state, but quantum
discord is observed due to the intrinsic nonlocal correlations of the paired
MFs. This finding reveals that quantum discord can indeed demonstrate the
intrinsic non-locality of the MFs formed in the nanowire. Also, quantum discord
can be employed to discriminate the MFs from the regular fermions. Furthermore,
we propose an experimental setup to measure the onset of quantum discord due to
the nonlocal correlations. Our approach provides a new, and experimentally
accessible, method to study the Majorana bound states by probing their
intrinsic non-locality signature.
