Abstract
The (111) surface of SnTe hosts one isotropic -centered and three degenerate anisotropic -centered Dirac surface states. We predict that a nematic phase with spontaneously broken symmetry will occur in the presence of a perpendicular magnetic field when the Landau levels are or filled. The nematic state phase boundary is controlled by a competition between intravalley Coulomb interactions that favor a valley-polarized state and weaker intervalley scattering processes that increase in relative strength with magnetic field. An in-plane Zeeman field alters the phase diagram by lifting the threefold Landau-level degeneracy, yielding a ground state energy with periodicity as a function of Zeeman-field orientation angle.
- Received 12 July 2015
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.026803
© 2016 American Physical Society