Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2023
Volume 68, Number 3
Las Vegas, Nevada (March 5-10)
Virtual (March 20-22); Time Zone: Pacific Time
Session N25: Dirac and Weyl Semimetals: Theory 2
11:30 AM–2:18 PM,
Wednesday, March 8, 2023
Room: Room 217/218
Sponsoring
Unit:
DCMP
Chair: Qun Yang, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solid
Abstract: N25.00011 : Dynamical Effects from Anomaly: Modified Electrodynamics in Weyl Semimetal*
1:30 PM–1:42 PM
Presenter:
Xuzhe Ying
(University of Waterloo)
Authors:
Xuzhe Ying
(University of Waterloo)
Anton Burkov
(University of Waterloo)
Chong Wang
(Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics)
At the mean-field level, a strongly interacting Weyl semimetal is described as the modified quantum electrodynamics from a time-reversal-breaking Weyl semimetal coupled with a U(1) gauge (electromagnetic) field. A key role is played by the soft dispersion of the photons in a particular direction, say z-direction, due to the Hall conductivity of the Weyl semimetal. Due to the soft photon, the fermion velocity in the z-direction is logarithmically reduced under renormalization group flow, together with the fine structure constant. Meanwhile, fermions acquire a finite lifetime from spontaneous emission of the soft photon, namely the Cherenkov radiation. At low energy E, the inverse of the fermion lifetime scales as τ −1 ∼ E/PolyLog(E). Therefore, even though fermion quasiparticles are eventually well-defined at very low energy, over a wide intermediate energy window the Weyl semimetal behaves like a marginal Fermi liquid. Phenomenologically, our results are more relevant for emergent Weyl semimetals, where the fermions and photons all emerge from strongly correlated lattice systems. Possible experimental implications are discussed.
*We acknowledge support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada. A. A. Burkov was also supported by Center for Advancement of Topological Semimetals, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, through the Ames Laboratory under contract DE-AC02-07CH11358. Research at Perimeter Institute is supported in part by the Government of Canada through the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and by the Province of Ontario through the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade.
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