No Arabic abstract
We report the identification of symmetry-enforced nodal planes (NPs) in CoSi providing the missing topological charges in an entire network of band-crossings comprising in addition multifold degeneracies and Weyl points, such that the fermion doubling theorem is satisfied. In our study we have combined measurements of Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillations in CoSi with material-specific calculations of the electronic structure and Berry curvature, as well as a general analysis of the band topology of space group (SG) 198. The observation of two nearly dispersionless SdH frequency branches provides unambiguous evidence of four Fermi surface sheets at the R point that reflect the symmetry-enforced orthogonality of the underlying wave functions at the intersections with the NPs. Hence, irrespective of the spin-orbit coupling strength, SG198 features always six- and fourfold degenerate crossings at R and $Gamma$ that are intimately connected to the topological charges distributed across the network.
Following over a decade of intense efforts to enable major progress in spintronics devices and quantum information technology by means of materials in which the electronic structure exhibits non-trivial topological properties, three key challenges are still unresolved. First, the identification of topological band degeneracies that are generically rather than accidentally located at the Fermi level. Second, the ability to easily control such topological degeneracies. And third, to identify generic topological degeneracies in large, multi-sheeted Fermi surfaces. Combining de Haas - van Alphen spectroscopy with density functional theory and band-topology calculations, we report here that the non-symmorphic symmetries in ferromagnetic MnSi generate nodal planes (NPs), which enforce topological protectorates (TPs) with substantial Berry curvatures at the intersection of the NPs with the Fermi surface (FS) regardless of the complexity of the FS. We predict that these TPs will be accompanied by sizeable Fermi arcs subject to the direction of the magnetization. Deriving the symmetry conditions underlying topological NPs, we show that the 1651 magnetic space groups comprise 7 grey groups and 26 black-and-white groups with topological NPs, including the space group of ferromagnetic MnSi. Thus, the identification of symmetry-enforced TPs on the FS of MnSi that may be controlled with a magnetic field suggests the existence of similar properties, amenable for technological exploitation, in a large number of materials.
We study the occurrence of symmetry-enforced topological band crossings in tetragonal crystals with strong spin-orbit coupling. By computing the momentum dependence of the symmetry eigenvalues and the global band topology in the entire Brillouin zone, we determine all symmetry-enforced band crossings in tetragonal space groups. In particular, we classify all Dirac and Weyl degeneracies on points, lines, and planes, and find a rich variety of topological degeneracies. This includes, among others, double Weyl points, fourfold-double Weyl points, fourfold-quadruple Weyl points, Weyl and Dirac nodal lines, as well as topological nodal planes. For the space groups with symmetry-enforced Weyl points, we determine the minimal number of Weyl points for a given band pair and, remarkably, find that materials in space groups 119 and 120 can have band pairs with only two Weyl points in the entire Brillouin zone. This simplifies the topological responses, which would be useful for device applications. Using the classification of symmetry-enforced band crossings, we perform an extensive database search for candidate materials with tetragonal space groups. Notably, we find that Ba$_5$In$_4$Bi$_5$ and NaSn$_5$ exhibit twofold and fourfold Weyl nodal lines, respectively, which cross the Fermi energy. Hf$_3$Sb and Cs$_2$Tl$_3$ have band pairs with few number of Weyl points near the Fermi energy. Furthermore, we show that Ba$_3$Sn$_2$ has Weyl points with an accordion dispersion and topological nodal planes, while AuBr and Tl$_4$PbSe$_3$ possess Dirac points with hourglass dispersions. For each of these candidate materials we present the ab-initio band structures and discuss possible experimental signatures of the nontrivial band topology.
We report the optical conductivity in high-quality crystals of the chiral topological semimetal CoSi, which hosts exotic quasiparticles known as multifold fermions. We find that the optical response is separated into several distinct regions as a function of frequency, each dominated by different types of quasiparticles. The low-frequency intraband response is captured by a narrow Drude peak from a high-mobility electron pocket of double Weyl quasi-particles, and the temperature dependence of the spectral weight is consistent with its Fermi velocity. By subtracting the low-frequency sharp Drude and phonon peaks at low temperatures, we reveal two intermediate quasi-linear inter-band contributions separated by a kink at 0.2 eV. Using Wannier tight-binding models based on first-principle calculations, we link the optical conductivity above and below 0.2 eV to interband transitions near the double Weyl fermion and a threefold fermion, respectively. We analyze and determine the chemical potential relative to the energy of the threefold fermion, revealing the importance of transitions between a linearly dispersing band and a flat band. More strikingly, below 0.1 eV our data are best explained if spin-orbit coupling is included, suggesting that at these energies the optical response is governed by transitions between a previously unobserved four-fold spin-3/2 node and a Weyl node. Our comprehensive combined experimental and theoretical study provides a way to resolve different types of multifold fermions in CoSi at different energy. More broadly our results provide the necessary basis to interpret the burgeoning set of optical and transport experiments in chiral topological semimetals.
We present a comprehensive study of the magnetic exchange Hamiltonian of elemental Gadolinium. We use neutron scattering to measure the magnon spectrum over the entire Brillouin zone, and fit the excitations to a spin wave model to extract the first 30 nearest neighbor magnetic exchange interactions with rigorously defined uncertainty. We find these exchange interactions to follow RKKY behavior, oscillating from ferromagnetic to antiferromagnetic as a function of distance. Finally, we discuss the topological features and degeneracies in Gd, and HCP ferromagnets in general. We show theoretically how, with asymmetric exchange, topological properties could be tuned with a magnetic field.
By means of first-principles calculations and modeling analysis, we have predicted that the traditional 2D-graphene hosts the topological phononic Weyl-like points (PWs) and phononic nodal line (PNL) in its phonon spectrum. The phonon dispersion of graphene hosts three type-I PWs (both PW1 and PW2 at the BZ corners emph{K} and emph{K}, and PW3 locating along the $Gamma$-emph{K} line), one type-II PW4 locating along the $Gamma$-emph{M} line, and one PNL surrounding the centered $Gamma$ point in the $q_{x,y}$ plane. The calculations further reveal that Berry curvatures are vanishingly zero throughout the whole BZ, except for the positions of these four pairs of Weyl-like phonons, at which the non-zero singular Berry curvatures appear with the Berry phase of $pi$ or -$pi$, confirming its topological non-trivial nature. The topologically protected non-trivial phononic edge states have been also evidenced along both the zigzag-edged and armchair-edged boundaries. These results would pave the ways for further studies of topological phononic properties of graphene, such as phononic destructive interference with a suppression of backscattering and intrinsic phononic quantum Hall-like effects.