We investigate the effects of bulk impurities on the electronic spectrum of Weyl semimetals, a recently identified class of Dirac-type materials. Using a $T$-matrix approach, we study resonant scattering due to a localized impurity in tight bindi
Weyl Semimetals (WS) are a new class of Dirac-type materials exhibiting a phase with bulk energy nodes and an associated vanishing density of states (DOS). We investigate the stability of this nodal DOS suppression in the presence of local impurities and consider whether or not such a suppression can be lifted by impurity-induced resonances. We find that while a scalar (chemical potential type) impurity can always induce a resonance at arbitrary energy and hence lift the DOS suppression at Dirac/Weyl nodes, for many other impurity types (e.g. magnetic or orbital-mixing), resonances are forbidden in a wide range of energy. We investigate a $4$-band tight-binding model of WS adapted from a physical heterostructure construction due to Burkov, Hook, and Balents, and represent a local impurity potential by a strength $g$ as well as a matrix structure $Lambda$. A general framework is developed to analyze this resonance dichotomy and make connection with the phase shift picture in scattering theory, as well as to determine the relation between resonance energy and impurity strength $g$. A complete classification of impurities based on $Lambda$, based on their effect on nodal DOS suppression, is tabulated. We also discuss the differences between continuum and lattice approaches.
We investigate the impacts of combination of fermion-fermion interactions and impurity scatterings on the low-energy stabilities of two-dimensional asymmetric materials with a quadratic band crossing point by virtue of the renormalization group that allows us to treat distinct sorts of physical ingredients on the same footing. The coupled flow evolutions of all interaction parameters which carry the central physical information are derived by taking into account one-loop corrections. Several intriguing results are manifestly extracted from these entangled evolutions. At first, we realize that the quadratic band touching structure is particularly robust once the fermionic couplings flow toward the Gaussian fixed point. Otherwise, it can either be stable or broken down against the impurity scattering in the vicinity of nontrivial fixed points. In addition, we figure out two parameters $eta$ and $lambda$ that measure rotational and particle-hole asymmetries are closely energy-dependent and exhibit considerably abundant behaviors depending upon the fates of fermion-fermion couplings and different types of impurities. Incidentally, as both $eta$ and $lambda$ can be remarkably increased or heavily reduced in the low-energy regime, an asymmetric system under certain restricted conditions exhibits an interesting phenomenon in which transitions either from rotational or particle-hole asymmetry to symmetric situation would be activated.
The dynamo effect is a class of macroscopic phenomena responsible for generation and maintaining magnetic fields in astrophysical bodies. It hinges on hydrodynamic three-dimensional motion of conducting gases and plasmas that achieve high hydrodynamic and/or magnetic Reynolds numbers due to large length scales involved. The existing laboratory experiments modeling dynamos are challenging and involve large apparatuses containing conducting fluids subject to fast helical flows. Here we propose that electronic solid-state materials -- in particular, hydrodynamic metals -- may serve as an alternative platform to observe some aspects of the dynamo effect. Motivated by recent experimental developments, this paper focuses on hydrodynamic Weyl semimetals, where the dominant scattering mechanism is due to interactions. We derive Navier-Stokes equations along with equations of magneto-hydrodynamics that describe transport of Weyl electron-hole plasma appropriate in this regime. We estimate the hydrodynamic and magnetic Reynolds numbers for this system. The latter is a key figure of merit of the dynamo mechanism. We show that it can be relatively large to enable observation of the dynamo-induced magnetic field bootstrap in experiment. Finally, we generalize the simplest dynamo instability model -- Ponomarenko dynamo -- to the case of a hydrodynamic Weyl semimetal and show that the chiral anomaly term reduces the threshold magnetic Reynolds number for the dynamo instability.
We study the renormalization of a non-magnetic impuritys scattering potential due to the presence of a massless collective spin mode at a ferromagnetic quantum critical point. To this end, we compute the lowest order vertex corrections in two- and three-dimensional systems, for arbitrary scattering angle and frequency of the scattered fermions, as well as band curvature. We show that only for backward scattering in D=2 does the lowest order vertex correction diverge logarithmically in the zero frequency limit. In all other cases, the vertex corrections approach a finite (albeit possibly large) value in the zero frequency limit. We demonstrate that vertex corrections are strongly suppressed with increasing curvature of the fermionic bands. Moreover, we show how the frequency dependence of vertex corrections varies with the scattering angle. We also discuss the form of higher order ladder vertex corrections and show that they can be classified according to the zero-frequency limit of the lowest order vertex correction. We show that even in those cases where the latter is finite, summing up an infinite series of ladder vertex diagrams can lead to a strong enhancement (or divergence) of the impuritys scattering potential. Finally, we suggest that the combined frequency and angular dependence of vertex corrections might be experimentally observable via a combination of frequency dependent and local measurements, such as scanning tunneling spectroscopy on ordered impurity structures, or measurements of the frequency dependent optical conductivity.
We report on a study of intrinsic superconductivity in a Weyl metal, i.e. a doped Weyl semimetal. Two distinct superconducting states are possible in this system in principle: a zero-momentum pairing BCS state, with point nodes in the gap function; and a finite-momentum FFLO-like state, with a full nodeless gap. We find that, in an inversion-symmetric Weyl metal the odd-parity BCS state has a lower energy than the FFLO state, despite the nodes in the gap. The FFLO state, on the other hand, may have a lower energy in a noncentrosymmetric Weyl metal, in which Weyl nodes of opposite chirality have different energy. However, realizing the FFLO state is in general very difficult since the paired states are not related by any exact symmetry, which precludes a weak-coupling superconducting instability. We also discuss some of the physical properties of the nodal BCS state, in particular Majorana and Fermi arc surface states.