No Arabic abstract
Motivated by the proposal of a Weyl-semimetal phase in pyrochlore iridates, we consider a Hubbard-type model on the pyrochlore lattice. To shed light on the question as to why such a state has not been observed experimentally, its robustness is analyzed. On the one hand, we study the possible phases when the system is doped. Magnetic frustration favors several phases with magnetic and charge order that do not occur at half filling, including additional Weyl-semimetal states close to quarter filling. On the other hand, we search for density waves that break translational symmetry and destroy the Weyl-semimetal phase close to half filling. The uniform Weyl semimetal is found to be stable, which we attribute to the low density of states close to the Fermi energy.
We report the effect of hydrostatic pressure on the magnetotransport properties of the Weyl semimetal NbAs. Subtle changes can be seen in the $rho_{xx}(T)$ profiles with pressure up to 2.31 GPa. The Fermi surfaces undergo an anisotropic evolution under pressure: the extremal areas slightly increase in the $mathbf{k_x}$-$mathbf{k_y}$ plane, but decrease in the $mathbf{k_z}$-$mathbf{k_y}$($mathbf{k_x}$) plane. The topological features of the two pockets observed at atmospheric pressure, however, remain unchanged at 2.31 GPa. No superconductivity can be seen down to 0.3 K for all the pressures measured. By fitting the temperature dependence of specific heat to the Debye model, we obtain a small Sommerfeld coefficient $gamma_0=$ 0.09(1) mJ/(mol$cdot$K$^2$) and a large Debye temperature, $Theta_D=$ 450(9) K, confirming a hard crystalline lattice that is stable under pressure. We also studied the Kadowaki-Woods ratio of this low-carrier-density massless system, $R_{KW}=$ 3.2$times 10^4$ $muOmega$ cm mol$^2$ K$^2$ J$^{-2}$. After accounting for the small carrier density in NbAs, this $R_{KW}$ indicates a suppressed transport scattering rate relative to other metals.
Spin liquids are highly correlated yet disordered states formed by the entanglement of magnetic dipoles$^1$. Theories typically define such states using gauge fields and deconfined quasiparticle excitations that emerge from a simple rule governing the local ground state of a frustrated magnet. For example, the 2-in-2-out ice rule for dipole moments on a tetrahedron can lead to a quantum spin ice in rare-earth pyrochlores - a state described by a lattice gauge theory of quantum electrodynamics$^{2-4}$. However, f-electron ions often carry multipole degrees of freedom of higher rank than dipoles, leading to intriguing behaviours and hidden orders$^{5-6}$. Here we show that the correlated ground state of a Ce$^{3+}$-based pyrochlore, Ce$_2$Sn$_2$O$_7$, is a quantum liquid of magnetic octupoles. Our neutron scattering results are consistent with the formation of a fluid-like state of matter, but the intensity distribution is weighted to larger scattering vectors, which indicates that the correlated degrees of freedom have a more complex magnetization density than that typical of magnetic dipoles in a spin liquid. The temperature evolution of the bulk properties in the correlated regime below 1 Kelvin is well reproduced using a model of dipole-octupole doublets on a pyrochlore lattice$^{7-8}$. The nature and strength of the octupole-octupole couplings, together with the existence of a continuum of excitations attributed to spinons, provides further evidence for a quantum ice of octupoles governed by a 2-plus-2-minus rule. Our work identifies Ce$_2$Sn$_2$O$_7$ as a unique example of a material where frustrated multipoles form a hidden topological order, thus generalizing observations on quantum spin liquids to multipolar phases that can support novel types of emergent fields and excitations.
We compare two crystallographic phases of the low-dimensional WP$_2$ to better understand features of electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions in topological systems. The topological $beta$-phase, a Weyl semimetal with a giant magneto-resistance, shows a larger intensity of electronic Raman scattering compared to the topologically trivial $alpha$-phase. This intensity sharply drops for $T < T^* = 20$ K which evidences a crossover in the topological phase from marginal quasiparticles to a coherent low temperature regime. In contrast, the non-topological $alpha$-phase shows more pronounced signatures of electron-phonon interaction. Here there exist generally enlarged phonon linewidths and deviations from conventional anharmonicity in an intermediate temperature regime. These effects provide evidence for an interesting interplay of electronic correlations and electron-phonon coupling. Both interband and intraband electronic fluctuations are involved in these effects. Their dependence on symmetry as well as momentum conservation are critical ingredients to understand this interplay.
Weyl semimetals are gapless three-dimensional topological materials where two bands touch at an even number of points in the bulk Brillouin zone. These semimetals exhibit topologically protected surface Fermi arcs, which pairwise connect the projected bulk band touchings in the surface Brillouin zone. Here, we analyze the quasiparticle interference patterns of the Weyl phase when time-reversal symmetry is explicitly broken. We use a multi-band $d$-electron Hubbard Hamiltonian on a pyrochlore lattice, relevant for the pyrochlore iridate R$_2$Ir$_2$O$_7$ (where R is a rare earth). Using exact diagonalization, we compute the surface spectrum and quasiparticle interference (QPI) patterns for various surface terminations and impurities. We show that the spin and orbital texture of the surface states can be inferred from the absence of certain backscattering processes and from the symmetries of the QPI features for non-magnetic and magnetic impurities. Furthermore, we show that the QPI patterns of the Weyl phase in pyrochlore iridates may exhibit additional interesting features that go beyond those found previously in TaAs.
We report the discovery of topological magnetism in the candidate magnetic Weyl semimetal CeAlGe. Using neutron scattering we find this system to host several incommensurate, square-coordinated multi-$vec{k}$ magnetic phases below $T_{rm{N}}$. The topological properties of a phase stable at intermediate magnetic fields parallel to the $c$-axis are suggested by observation of a topological Hall effect. Our findings highlight CeAlGe as an exceptional system for exploiting the interplay between the nontrivial topologies of the magnetization in real space and Weyl nodes in momentum space.