Interacting Weyl Semimetals: Characterization via the Topological Hamiltonian and its Breakdown

William Witczak-Krempa, Michael Knap, and Dmitry Abanin
Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 136402 – Published 25 September 2014
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Abstract

Weyl semimetals (WSMs) constitute a 3D phase with linearly dispersing Weyl excitations at low energy, which lead to unusual electrodynamic responses and open Fermi arcs on boundaries. We derive a simple criterion to identify and characterize WSMs in an interacting setting using the exact electronic Green’s function at zero frequency, which defines a topological Bloch Hamiltonian. We apply this criterion by numerically analyzing, via cluster and other methods, interacting lattice models with and without time-reversal symmetry. We identify various mechanisms for how interactions move and renormalize Weyl fermions. Our methods remain valid in the presence of long-ranged Coulomb repulsion. Finally, we introduce a WSM-like phase for which our criterion breaks down due to fractionalization: the charge-carrying Weyl quasiparticles are orthogonal to the electron.

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  • Received 12 June 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.136402

© 2014 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

William Witczak-Krempa1, Michael Knap2,3, and Dmitry Abanin1

  • 1Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 2Y5, Canada
  • 2Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
  • 3ITAMP, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA

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Issue

Vol. 113, Iss. 13 — 26 September 2014

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