Emergence of gapped bulk and metallic side walls in the zeroth Landau level in Dirac and Weyl semimetals
Author(s)
Chan, Ching-Kit; Lee, Patrick A
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Recent transport experiments have revealed the activation of longitudinal magnetoresistance of Weyl semimetals in the quantum limit, suggesting the breakdown of chiral anomaly in a strong magnetic field. Here we provide a general mechanism for gapping the zeroth chiral Landau levels applicable for both Dirac and Weyl semimetals. Our result shows that the zeroth Landau levels anticross when the magnetic axis is perpendicular to the Dirac/Weyl node separation and when the inverse magnetic length l[subscript B][superscript −1] is comparable to the node separation scale Δk. The induced bulk gap increases rapidly beyond a threshold field in Weyl semimetals, but has no threshold and is nonmonotonic in Dirac systems due to the crossover between l[subscript B][superscript −1] > Δk and l[subscript B][superscript −1] < Δk regions. We also find that the Dirac and possibly Weyl systems host counterpropagating edge states between the zeroth Landau levels, leading to a state with metallic side walls and zero Hall conductance.
Date issued
2017-11Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of PhysicsJournal
Physical Review B
Publisher
American Physical Society
Citation
Chan, Ching-Kit, and Patrick A. Lee. “Emergence of Gapped Bulk and Metallic Side Walls in the Zeroth Landau Level in Dirac and Weyl Semimetals.” Physical Review B, vol. 96, no. 19, Nov. 2017. © 2017 American Physical Society
Version: Final published version
ISSN
2469-9950
2469-9969