Skin effect as a probe of transport regimes in Weyl semimetals

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2022 Mar 22;119(12):e2200367119. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2200367119. Epub 2022 Mar 14.

Abstract

SignificanceWeyl semimetals are a class of three-dimensional materials, whose low-energy excitations mimic massless fermions. In consequence they exhibit various unusual transport properties related to the presence of chiral anomalies, a subtle quantum phenomenon that denotes the breaking of the classical chiral symmetry by quantum fluctuations. In this work we present a universal description of transport in weakly disordered Weyl semimetals with several scattering mechanisms taken into account. Our work predicts the existence of a new anomaly-induced transport regime in these materials and gives a crisp experimental signature of a chiral anomaly in optical conductivity measurements. Finally, by also capturing the hydrodynamic regime of quasiparticles, our construction bridges the gap between developments in electronic fluid mechanics and three-dimensional semimetals.

Keywords: Weyl semimetals; quantum anomalies; skin effect.