We review the recent, mainly theoretical, progress in the study of topological nodal line semimetals in three dimensions. In these semimetals, the conduction and the valence bands cross each other along a one-dimensional curve in the three-dimensional Brillouin zone, and any perturbation that preserves a certain symmetry group (generated by either spatial symmetries or time-reversal symmetry) cannot remove this crossing line and open a full direct gap between the two bands. The nodal line(s) is hence topologically protected by the symmetry group, and can be associated with a topological invariant. In this Review, (i) we enumerate the symmetry groups that may protect a topological nodal line; (ii) we write down the explicit form of the topological invariant for each of these symmetry groups in terms of the wave functions on the Fermi surface, establishing a topological classification; (iii) for certain classes, we review the proposals for the realization of these semimetals in real materials and (iv) we discuss different scenarios that when the protecting symmetry is broken, how a topological nodal line semimetal becomes Weyl semimetals, Dirac semimetals and other topological phases and (v) we discuss the possible physical effects accessible to experimental probes in these materials.
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