Motivated by recent examples of three-dimensional lattice Hamiltonians with massless Dirac fermions in their (bulk) spectrum, I revisit the problem of fermion doubling on bipartite lattices. The number of components of the Dirac fermion in a time-reversal and parity invariant d-dimensional lattice system is determined by the minimal representation of the Clifford algebra of $d+1$ Hermitian Dirac matrices that allows a construction of the time-reversal operator with the square of unity, and it equals $2^d$ for $d=2,3$. Possible mass-terms for (spinless) Dirac fermions are listed and discussed. In three dimensions there are altogether eight independent masses, out of which four are even, and four are odd under time reversal. A specific violation of time-reversal symmetry that leads to (minimal) four-component massless Dirac fermion in three dimensions at low energies is constructed.
The effect of disorder on the Landau levels of massless Dirac fermions is examined for the cases with and without the fermion doubling. To tune the doubling a tight-binding model having a complex transfer integral is adopted to shift the energies of two Dirac cones, which is theoretically proposed earlier and realizable in cold atoms in an optical lattice. In the absence of the fermion doubling, the $n=0$ Landau level is shown to exhibit an anomalous sharpness even if the disorder is uncorrelated in space (i.e., large K-K' scattering). This anomaly occurs when the disorder respects the chiral …
The doubling of massless Dirac fermions on two-dimensional lattices is theoretically studied. It has been shown that the doubling of massless Dirac fermions on a lattice with broken chiral symmetry is topologically protected even when the Dirac cone is tilted. This is due to the generalized chiral symmetry defined for lattice systems, where such models can be generated by a deformation of the chiral-symmetric lattice models. The present paper shows for two-band lattice models that this is a general way to produce systems with the generalized chiral symmetry in that such systems can always be t…
With time reversal symmetry a Dirac operator has vanishing index and Chern number. We show that we can nevertheless define a nontrivial Z$_2$ index as well as a corresponding topological invariant given by gauge field, which implies that such a Dirac operator is topologically nontrivial.
The spatial discretization of the single-cone Dirac Hamiltonian on the surface of a topological insulator or superconductor needs a special "staggered" grid, to avoid the appearance of a spurious second cone in the Brillouin zone. We adapt the Stacey discretization from lattice gauge theory to produce a generalized eigenvalue problem, of the form ${\mathcal H}ψ=E {\mathcal P}ψ$, with Hermitian tight-binding operators ${\mathcal H}$, ${\mathcal P}$, a locally conserved particle current, and preserved chiral and symplectic symmetries. This permits the study of the spectral statistics of Dirac fe…
We investigate the interplay between confinement and the fermion doubling problem in Dirac-like Hamiltonians. Individually, both features are well known. First, simple electrostatic gates do not confine electrons due to the Klein tunneling. Second, a typical lattice discretization of the first-order derivative $k \rightarrow -i\partial_x$ skips the central point and allow spurious low-energy, highly oscillating solutions known as fermion doublers. While a no-go theorem states that the doublers cannot be eliminated without artificially breaking a symmetry, here we show that the symmetry broken …
We investigate the topological phase derived by time-reversal breaking fields in a nonsymmorphic symmetry-protected two-dimensional Dirac semimetal. When the nonsymmorphic symmetry is preserved even in the presence of the field, the two-dimensional electronic states change into two distinct topological phases with the insulating gap. One phase is well-known as quantum Hall states with chiral edge modes accompanying the Hall current, but the other one is an unconventional topological phase with helical edge modes in the absence of time-reversal symmetry.
Filling-enforced Dirac semimetals, or those required at specific fillings by the combination of crystalline and time-reversal symmetries, have been proposed and discovered in numerous materials. However, Dirac points in these materials are not generally robust against breaking or modifying time-reversal symmetry. We present a new class of two-dimensional Dirac semimetal protected by the combination of crystal symmetries and a special, antiferromagnetic time-reversal symmetry. Systems in this class of magnetic layer groups, while having broken time-reversal symmetry, still respect the operation…
We discuss the excitation spectra around the Dirac node on a surface of a three-dimensional topological insulator. By using the diagrammatic expansion, we show that the coupling of an electron with the gauge field in the presence of impurity scatterings opens a gap around the Dirac node. The results are consistent with a recent experimental finding by T. Sato,et. al.[ Nature Phys. \textbf{7}, 840 (2011)]. We also discuss the consistency between the present results and the bulk-boundary correspondence of the topological insulator in the presence of time reversal symmetry. The conclusion can be …
We study the thermodynamic properties of the two-component $2+1$-dimensional massive Dirac fermions in an external magnetic field. The broken time-reversal symmetry results in the presence of a linear in the magnetic field part of the thermodynamic potential, while in the famous problem of Landau diamagnetism the leading field dependent term is quadratic in the field. Accordingly, the leading term of the explicitly calculated magnetization is anomalous, viz. it is independent of the strength of the magnetic field. The Středa formula is employed to describe how the anomalous magnetization is re…
A linear Josephson junction mediated by the surface states of a time-reversal-invariant Weyl or Dirac semimetal localizes Majorana flat bands protected by the time-reversal symmetry. We show that as a result, the Josephson current exhibits a discontinuous jump at $π$ phase difference which can serve as an experimental signature of the Majorana bands. The magnitude of the jump scales proportionally to the junction width and the momentum space distance between the Weyl nodes. It also exhibits a characteristic dependence on the junction orientation. We demonstrate that the jump is robust against …
The hallmark of Weyl semimetals is the existence of open constant-energy contours on their surface -- the so-called Fermi arcs -- connecting Weyl points. Here, we show that for time-reversal symmetric realizations of Weyl semimetals these Fermi arcs in many cases coexist with closed Fermi pockets originating from surface Dirac cones pinned to time-reversal invariant momenta. The existence of Fermi pockets is required for certain Fermi-arc connectivities due to additional restrictions imposed by the six $\mathbb{Z}_2$ topological invariants characterizing a generic time-reversal invariant Weyl …
We show that the strongly spin-orbit coupled materials Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 (first non-Bi topological insulator) and their derivatives belong to the Z2 (Time-Reversal-Protected, elastic backscattering suppressed) topological-insulator class. Using a combination of first-principles theoretical calculations and photoemission spectroscopy, we directly show that Bi2Te3 is a large spin-orbit-induced indirect bulk band gap (about 150 meV) semiconductor whose surface is characterized by a single topological spin-Dirac cone. The electronic structure of self-doped Sb2Te3 exhibits similar Z2 topological pr…
In this work, we perform a statistical study on Dirac Billiards in the extreme quantum limit (a single open channel on the leads). Our numerical analysis uses a large ensemble of random matrices and demonstrates the preponderant role of dephasing mechanisms in such chaotic billiards. Physical implementations of these billiards range from quantum dots of graphene to topological insulators structures. We show, in particular, that the role of finite crossover fields between the universal symmetries quickly leaves the conductance to the asymptotic limit of unitary ensembles. Furthermore, we show t…
Topological insulators (TIs) are a new class of matter characterized by the unique electronic properties of an insulating bulk and metallic boundaries arising from non-trivial bulk band topology. While the surfaces of TIs have been well studied, the interface between TIs and semiconductors may not only be more technologically relevant but the interaction with non-topological states may fundamentally alter the physics. Here, we present a general model to show that such an interaction can lead to spin-momentum locked non-topological states, the Dirac cone can split in two, and the particle-hole …
Whereas massless Dirac fermions in monolayer graphene exhibit Klein tunneling when passing through a potential barrier upon normal incidence, such a barrier totally reflects massive Dirac fermions in bilayer graphene due to difference in chirality. We show that, in the presence of magnetic barriers, such massive Dirac fermions can have transmission through even at normal incidence. The general consequence of this behaviour for multilayer graphene consisting of massless and massive modes are mentioned. We also briefly discuss the effect of a bias voltage on such magnetotransport.
The gapless surface Dirac cone of time reversal invariant topological insulators is protected by time reversal symmetry due to the Kramers' theorem. Spin degree of freedom is usually required since Kramers' theorem only guarantees double degeneracy for spinful fermions, but not for spinless fermions. In this paper, we present an antiferromagnetic spinless model, which breaks time reversal symmetry. Similar to time reversal invariant topological insulators, this model possesses a topologically non-trivial phase with a single surface Dirac cone, which is protected by the combination of time reve…
We investigate the twist-angle and gate dependence of the proximity exchange coupling in twisted graphene on monolayer Cr$_2$Ge$_2$Te$_6$ from first principles. The proximitized Dirac band dispersions of graphene are fitted to a model Hamiltonian, yielding effective sublattice-resolved proximity-induced exchange parameters ($λ_{\textrm{ex}}^\textrm{A}$ and $λ_{\textrm{ex}}^\textrm{B}$) for a series of twist angles between 0$^{\circ}$ and 30$^{\circ}$. For aligned layers (0$^{\circ}$ twist angle), the exchange coupling of graphene is the same on both sublattices, $λ_{\textrm{ex}}^\textrm{A} \ap…
We present a new type of three-dimensional essential Dirac semimetal with magnetic ordering. The Dirac points are protected by the magnetic space groups and cannot be gapped without lowering such symmetries, where the combined antiunitary symmetry of half-translation operator and time-reversal plays an essential role. We introduce two explicit tight-binding models for space groups $16$ and $102$, which possesses Dirac point at time-reversal-invariant momenta of surface Brillouin zone. In contrast to the time-reversal-invariant essential Dirac semimetal, the magnetic space groups here can be ei…
Finite flux of the (time-reversal-symmetric) pseudo-magnetic field, which represents the effect of wrinkling of the graphene sheet for example, is shown to be a catalyst for spontaneous breaking of the time-reversal symmetry of Dirac fermions in two dimensions. Possible experimental consequences of this effect for graphene are discussed.
We study the stability of gap-closing (Weyl or Dirac) points in the three-dimensional Brillouin zone of semimetals using Clifford algebras and their representation theory. We show that a pair of Weyl points with $\mathbb{Z}_2$ topological charge are stable in a semimetal with time-reversal and reflection symmetries when the square of the product of the two symmetry transformations equals minus identity. We present toy models of $\mathbb{Z}_2$ Weyl semimetals which have surface modes forming helical Fermi arcs. We also show that Dirac points with $\mathbb{Z}_2$ topological charge are stable in …
An interaction-driven nonzero quantum Hall conductivity is shown to occur in time-reversal symmetric massive Dirac materials, in the absence of any external agent. The effect is produced through the dynamical breakdown of time-reversal symmetry, which is generated by quantum fluctuations, when the full dynamical electromagnetic interaction among the electrons is taken into account. The manifestation of this emergent parity anomaly should be observed in materials such as silicene, stanene, germanene and transition metal dichalcogenides, at low enough temperatures.
The strong time-reversal symmetric (TRS) topological insulator (TI) in three space dimensions features gapless surface states in the form of massless Dirac fermions. We study these surface states with the method of bosonization, and find that the resulting bosonic theory has a topological contribution due to the parity anomaly of the surface Dirac fermions. We argue that the presence of a quantum anomaly is, in fact, the main reason for the existence of a surface state, by the principle that anomalies of a surface and bulk must cancel. Inspecting other classes of topological insulators, we arg…
We show that in the presence of $n$-fold rotation symmetries and time-reversal symmetry, the number of fermion flavors must be a multiple of $2n$ ($n=2,3,4,6$) on two-dimensional lattices, a stronger version of the well-known fermion doubling theorem in the presence of only time-reversal symmetry. The violation of the multiplication theorems indicates anomalies, and may only occur on the surface of new classes of topological crystalline insulators. Put on a cylinder, these states have $n$ Dirac cones on the top and on the bottom surfaces, connected by $n$ helical edge modes on the side surface…
The search for symmetry-protected 2D Dirac semimetals analogous to graphene is important both for fundamental and practical interest. The 2D Dirac cones are protected by crystalline symmetries and magnetic ordering may destroy their robustness. Here we propose a general framework to classify stable 2D Dirac semimetals in spin-orbit coupled systems having the combined time-reversal and inversion symmetries, and show the existence of the stable Dirac points in 2D antiferromagnetic semimetals. Compared to 3D Dirac semimetals which fall into two distinct classes, Dirac semimetals in 2D with combin…
Electron fractionalization is intimately related to topology. In one-dimensional systems, fractionally charged states exist at domain walls between degenerate vacua. In two-dimensional systems, fractionalization exists in quantum Hall fluids, where time-reversal symmetry is broken by a large external magnetic field. Recently, there has been a tremendous effort in the search for examples of fractionalization in two-dimensional systems with time-reversal symmetry. In this letter, we show that fractionally charged topological excitations exist on graphenelike structures, where quasiparticles are …
We combine transport, magnetization, and torque magnetometry measurements to investigate the electronic structure of ZrTe5 and its evolution with temperature. At fields beyond the quantum limit, we observe a magnetization reversal from paramagnetic to diamagnetic response, which is characteristic of a Dirac semi-metal. We also observe a strong non-linearity in the magnetization that suggests the presence of additional low-lying carriers from other low-energy bands. Finally, we observe a striking sensitivity of the magnetic reversal to temperature that is not readily explained by simple band-st…
In general, the stability of a band crossing point indicates the presence of a quantized topological number associated with it. In particular, the recent discovery of three-dimensional Dirac semimetals in Na$_{3}$Bi and Cd$_{3}$As$_{2}$ demonstrates that a Dirac point with four-fold degeneracy can be stable as long as certain crystalline symmetries are supplemented in addition to the time-reversal and inversion symmetries. However, the topological charges associated with Na$_{3}$Bi and Cd$_{3}$As$_{2}$ are not clarified yet. In this work, we identify the topological charge of three-dimensional…
We study the quantum diffusive transport of multivalley massive Dirac cones, where time-reversal symmetry requires opposite spin orientations in inequivalent valleys. We show that the intervalley scattering and intravalley scattering can be distinguished from the quantum conductivity that corrects the semiclassical Drude conductivity, due to their distinct symmetries and localization trends. In immediate practice, it allows transport measurements to estimate the intervalley scattering rate in hole-doped monolayers of group-VI transition metal dichalcogenides (e.g., molybdenum dichalcogenides a…
Both topological crystalline insulators surfaces and graphene host multi-valley massless Dirac fermions which are not pinned to a high-symmetry point of the Brillouin zone. Strain couples to the low-energy electrons as a time-reversal invariant gauge field, leading to the formation of pseudo-Landau levels (PLL). Here we study periodic pseudo-magnetic fields originating from strain superlattices. We study the low-energy Dirac PLL spectrum induced by the strain superlattice and analyze the effect of various polarized states. Through self-consistent Hartree-Fock calculations we establish that, du…
The symmetries that protect massless Dirac fermions from a gap opening may become ineffective if the Dirac equation is discretized in space and time, either because of scattering between multiple Dirac cones in the Brillouin zone (fermion doubling) or because of singularities at zone boundaries. Here we introduce an implementation of Dirac fermions on a space-time lattice that removes both obstructions. The quasi-energy band structure has a tangent dispersion with a single Dirac cone that cannot be gapped without breaking both time-reversal and chiral symmetries. We show that this topological …
A wide class of materials that were discovered to carry a topologically protected phase order has led to a highly active area of research called topological insulators. This phenomenon has radically changed our thinking because of their robust quantum coherent behavior showing two-dimensional Dirac-type metallic surface states and simultaneously insulating bulk states. The Dirac SSs are induced by the strong spin-orbit coupling as well as protected by the time reversal symmetry. Breaking TRS in a TI with ferromagnetic perturbation can lead to many exotic quantum phenomena, such as the quantum …
Odd numbers of Dirac points and helical states can exist at edges (surfaces) of two-dimensional (three-dimensional) topological insulators. In the bulk of a one-dimensional lattice (not an edge) with time reversal symmetry, however, a no-go theorem forbids the existence of an odd number of Dirac points or helical states. Introducing a magnetic field can violate the time reversal condition but would usually lift the degeneracy at the Dirac points. We find that a spatially periodic magnetic field with zero mean value can induce a single Dirac point in a one-dimensional system with spin-orbit cou…
A single Dirac cone on the surface is the hallmark of three-dimensional (3D) topological insulators, where the double degeneracy at the Dirac point is protected by time-reversal symmetry and the spin-splitting away from the point is provided by the spin-orbital coupling. Here we predict a single Dirac-cone surface state in a 3D photonic crystal, where the degeneracy at the Dirac point is protected by a nonsymmorphic glide reflection and the linear splitting away from it is enabled by breaking time-reversal symmetry. Such a gapless surface state is fully robust against random disorder of any ty…
We study the quantum Hall effect of Dirac fermions on the surface of a Wilson-Dirac type topological insulator thin film in the strong topological insulating phase. Although a magnetic field breaks time reversal symmetry of the bulk, the surface states can survive even in a strong field regime. We examine how the Landau levels of the surface states are affected by symmetry breaking perturbations.
Magnetotransport measurements are a popular way of characterizing the electronic structure of topological materials and often the resulting datasets cannot be described by the well-known Drude model due to large, non-parabolic contributions. In this work, we focus on the effects of magnetic fields on topological materials through a Zeeman term included in the model Hamiltonian. To this end, we re-evaluate the simplifications made in the derivations of the Drude model and pinpoint the scattering time and Fermi velocity as Zeeman-term dependent factors in the conductivity tensor. The driving mec…
We study the scattering of the Dirac electrons by a point-like nonmagnetic impurity on the surface of a topological insulator, driven by a time-periodic gate voltage. It is found that, due to the doublet degenerate crossing points of different Floquet sidebands, resonant backscattering can happen for the surface electrons, even without breaking the time-reversal (TR) symmetry of the topological surface states (TSSs). The energy spectrum is reshuffled in a way quite different from that for the circularly polarized light, so that new features are exhibited in the Friedel oscillations of the loca…
Topological superfluids protected by mirror and time-reversal symmetries are exotic states of matter possessing Majorana Kramers pairs (MKPs), yet their realizations have long been hindered by the requirement of unconventional pairing. We propose to realize such a topological superfluid by utilizing $s$-wave pairing and emergent mirror and time-reversal symmetries in two coupled 1D ultracold atomic Fermi gases with spin-orbit coupling. By stacking such systems into 2D, we discover topological and Dirac-nodal superfluids hosting distinct MKP flat bands. We show that the emergent symmetries make…
We study topological phases of time-reversal invariant singlet superconductors in three spatial dimensions. In these particle-hole symmetric systems the topological phases are characterized by an even-numbered winding number $ν$. At a two-dimensional (2D) surface the topological properties of this quantum state manifest themselves through the presence of $ν$ flavors of gapless Dirac fermion surface states, which are robust against localization from random impurities. We construct a tight-binding model on the diamond lattice that realizes a topologically nontrivial phase, in which the winding n…
We adapt a finite difference method of solution of the two-dimensional massless Dirac equation, developed in the context of lattice gauge theory, to the calculation of electrical conduction in a graphene sheet or on the surface of a topological insulator. The discretized Dirac equation retains a single Dirac point (no "fermion doubling"), avoids intervalley scattering as well as trigonal warping, and preserves the single-valley time reversal symmetry (= symplectic symmetry) at all length scales and energies -- at the expense of a nonlocal finite difference approximation of the differential ope…
We present a numerical method to compute the Landauer conductance of noninteracting two-dimensional massless Dirac fermions in disordered systems. The method allows for the introduction of boundary conditions at the ribbon edges and accounts for an external magnetic field. By construction, the proposed discretization scheme avoids the fermion doubling problem. The method does not rely on an atomistic basis and is particularly useful to deal with long-range disorder, the correlation length of which largely exceeds the underlying material crystal lattice spacing. As an application, we study the …
A three-dimensional (3D) Dirac semimetal is the 3D analog of graphene whose bulk band shows a linear dispersion relation in the 3D momentum space. Since each Dirac point with four-fold degeneracy carries a zero Chern number, a Dirac semimetal can be stable only in the presence of certain crystalline symmetries. In this work, we propose a general framework to classify stable 3D Dirac semimetals. Based on symmetry analysis, we show that various types of stable 3D Dirac semimetals exist in systems having the time-reversal, inversion, and uniaxial rotational symmetries. There are two distinct clas…
We present a physical scenario in which both Fermi arcs and two-dimensional gapless Dirac states coexist as boundary modes at the same two-dimensional surface. This situation is realized in topological insulator-Weyl semimetal interfaces in spite of explicit time reversal symmetry breaking. Based on a heuristic topological index, we predict that the coexistence is allowed when (i) the corresponding states of the Weyl semimetal and topological insulator occur at disconnected parts of the Brillouin zone separated by the Weyl nodes and (ii) the time-reversal breaking vector defining the Weyl semi…
We propose a different route to time-reversal invariant Weyl semimetals employing multilayer heterostructures comprising ordinary "trivial" insulators and nontrivial insulators with \textit{pairs} of protected Dirac cones on the surface. We consider both the case of weak topological insualtors, where surface Dirac cones are pinned to time-reversal invariant momenta, and of topological crystalline insulators with unpinned surface Dirac cones. For both realizations we explain phenomenologically how the proposed construction leads to the emergence of a Weyl semimetal phase. We further formulate e…
Representing massless Dirac fermions on a spatial lattice poses a potential challenge known as the Fermion Doubling problem. Addition of a quadratic term to the Dirac Hamiltonian circumvents this problem. We show that the modified Hamiltonian with the additional term results in a very small Hamiltonian matrix when discretized on a real space square lattice. The resulting Hamiltonian matrix is considerably more efficient for numerical simulations without sacrificing on accuracy and is several orders of magnitude faster than the atomistic tight binding model. Using this Hamiltonian and the Non-E…
In this work, pumped currents of the adiabatically-driven double-barrier structure based on the pseudospin-1 Dirac-Weyl fermions are studied. As a result of the three-band dispersion and hence the unique properties of pseudospin-1 Dirac-Weyl quasiparticles, sharp current-direction reversal is found at certain parameter settings especially at the Dirac point of the band structure, where apexes of the two cones touches at the flat band. Such a behavior can be interpreted consistently by the Berry phase of the scattering matrix and the classical turnstile mechanism.
We show that a class of weak three-dimensional topological insulators feature one-dimensional Dirac electrons on their surfaces. Their hallmark is a line-like energy dispersion along certain directions of the surface Brillouin zone. These one-dimensional Dirac line degeneracies are topologically protected by a symmetry that we refer to as in-plane time-reversal invariance. We show how this invariance leads to Dirac lines in the surface spectrum of stacked Kane-Mele systems and more general models for weak three-dimensional topological insulators.
