Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2023
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.11986 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1866909080234229760 |
|---|---|
| author | Knoll, Andy Timm, Carsten |
| author_facet | Knoll, Andy Timm, Carsten |
| contents | Materials that break time-reversal or inversion symmetry possess nondegenerate electronic bands, which can touch at so-called Weyl points. The spinor eigenstates in the vicinity of a Weyl point exhibit a well-defined chirality $\pm 1$. Numerous works have studied the consequences of this chirality, for example in unconventional magnetoelectric transport. However, even a Weyl point with isotropic dispersion is not only characterized by its chirality but also by the momentum dependence of the spinor eigenstates. For a single Weyl point, this momentum-space spin structure can be brought into standard "hedgehog" form by a unitary transformation, but for two or more Weyl points, this is not possible. In this work, we show that the relative spin structure of a pair of Weyl points has strong qualitative signatures in the electromagnetic response. Specifically, we investigate the Friedel oscillations in the induced charge density due to a test charge for a centrosymmetric system consisting of two Weyl points with isotropic dispersion. The most pronounced signature is that the amplitude of the Friedel oscillations falls off as $1/r^4$ in directions in which both Weyl points exhibit the same spin structure, while for directions with inverted spin structures, the amplitude of the Friedel oscillations decreases as $1/r^3$. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2308_11986 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Irreducible momentum-space spin structure of Weyl semimetals and its signatures in Friedel oscillations Knoll, Andy Timm, Carsten Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics Materials that break time-reversal or inversion symmetry possess nondegenerate electronic bands, which can touch at so-called Weyl points. The spinor eigenstates in the vicinity of a Weyl point exhibit a well-defined chirality $\pm 1$. Numerous works have studied the consequences of this chirality, for example in unconventional magnetoelectric transport. However, even a Weyl point with isotropic dispersion is not only characterized by its chirality but also by the momentum dependence of the spinor eigenstates. For a single Weyl point, this momentum-space spin structure can be brought into standard "hedgehog" form by a unitary transformation, but for two or more Weyl points, this is not possible. In this work, we show that the relative spin structure of a pair of Weyl points has strong qualitative signatures in the electromagnetic response. Specifically, we investigate the Friedel oscillations in the induced charge density due to a test charge for a centrosymmetric system consisting of two Weyl points with isotropic dispersion. The most pronounced signature is that the amplitude of the Friedel oscillations falls off as $1/r^4$ in directions in which both Weyl points exhibit the same spin structure, while for directions with inverted spin structures, the amplitude of the Friedel oscillations decreases as $1/r^3$. |
| title | Irreducible momentum-space spin structure of Weyl semimetals and its signatures in Friedel oscillations |
| topic | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.11986 |