are responsible for stabilizing low-energy ABSs, though a common suggestion is that smooth variations in either the chemical potential or pairing potential are required [@Setiawan:2017; @Moore:2018; @Vuik:2018; @Avila:2018] (note that such smooth variations can also stabilize low-energy ABSs in the absence of a normal dot region [@Kells:2012; @Fleckenstein:2018; @Aseev:2018]). Additionally, the ABSs have always been shown to evolve into topological MBSs [@Pascal1; @Pascal2; @Cayao:2015] as the strength of the magnetic field is increased, indicating that they could simply be a precursor to a true topological phase. Finally, all previous studies have considered effective (strict) 1D models that fail to account for the significant modifications of the nanowire by the proximity effect and the strong dependence of the system properties on the geometry of the superconducting layer.

In this paper, we first consider a minimal analytical model of a quantum dot/nanowire junction (see Fig. \[fig:Fig1\]) in which we take the proximitized region of the nanowire to have no spin-orbit interaction (SOI). We show that even in such a model in which there is never a topological phase (due to the fact that there is no SOI in the proximitized section of the wire), it is still possible to have a low-energy 