We analyze the stability of time-reversal (${\mathcal T}$) and lattice four-fold ($C_4$) symmetry breaking three-dimensional higher-order topological (HOT) Dirac semimetals (DSMs) and the associated one-dimensional hinge modes in the presence of random pointlike charge impurities. Complementary real space numerical and momentum space renormalization group (RG) analyses suggest that a HOTDSM, while being a stable phase of matter for sufficiently weak disorder, undergoes a continuous quantum phase transition into a trivial metal at finite disorder. However, the corresponding critical exponents (numerically obtained from the scaling of the density of states) are extremely close to the ones found in a dirty, but first-order DSM that on the other hand preserves ${\mathcal T}$ and $C_4$ symmetries, and support two Fermi arc surface states. This observation suggests an emergent \emph{superuniversality} (insensitive to symmetries) in the entire family of dirty DSMs, as also predicted by a leading-order RG analysis. As a direct consequence of the bulk-boundary correspondence, the hinge modes in a system with open boundaries gradually fade away with increasing randomness, and completely dissolve in the trivial metallic phase at strong disorder.
We study the stability of three-dimensional incompressible Weyl semimetals in the presence of random quenched charge impurities. Combining numerical analysis and scaling theory we show that in the presence of sufficiently weak randomness (i) Weyl semimetal remains stable, while (ii) double-Weyl semimetal gives rise to compressible diffusive metal where the mean density of states at zero energy is finite. At stronger disorder, Weyl semimetal undergoes a quantum phase transition and enter into a metallic phase. Mean density of states at zero energy serves as the order parameter and displays sing…
We study the effects of disorder on semi-infinite Weyl and Dirac semimetals where the presence of a boundary leads to the formation of either Fermi arcs/rays or Dirac surface states. Using a local version of the self-consistent Born approximation, we calculate the profile of the local density of states and the surface group velocity. This allows us to explore the full phase diagram as a function of boundary conditions and disorder strength. While in all cases we recover the sharp criticality in the bulk, we unveil a critical behavior at the surface of Dirac semimetals, which is smoothed out by…
Weyl semimetals (WSMs) have recently attracted a great deal of attention as they provide condensed matter realization of chiral anomaly, feature topologically protected Fermi arc surface states and sustain sharp chiral Weyl quasiparticles up to a critical disorder at which a continuous quantum phase transition (QPT) drives the system into a metallic phase. We here numerically demonstrate that with increasing strength of disorder the Fermi arc gradually looses its sharpness, and close to the WSM-metal QPT it completely dissolves into the metallic bath of the bulk. Predicted topological nature o…
We theoretically study the stability of three dimensional Dirac semimetals against short-range electron-electron interaction and quenched time-reversal symmetric disorder (but excluding mass disorder). First we focus on the clean interacting and the noninteracting dirty Dirac semimetal separately, and show that they support two distinct quantum critical points. Using renormalization group techniques, we find that while interaction driven quantum critical points are \emph{Gaussian} (mean-field) in nature, describing quantum phase transitions into various broken symmetry phases, the ones control…
Entanglement signatures of topological phase transitions in a dirty Weyl semimetal
Institute for Theoretical Physics, ETH Zurich（苏黎世联邦理工学院理论物理研究所）；Department of Physics, Chuo University（中央大学物理学系）；Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research（马克斯·普朗克固体研究所）
We theoretically investigate the emergence of non-hermitian physics at the heterojunction of a type-II Dirac semi-metal (DSM) and a dirty superconductor (DSC). The non-hermiticity is introduced in the DSM through the self-energy term incorporated via the dirtiness of the superconducting material. This causes the spectra of the effective Hamiltonian to become complex, which gives rise to the appearance of the exceptional points (EPs). This complex self energy, apart from having a frequency dependence, also acquires spatial dependence as well, which is unique and can provide interesting effects …
For conventional topological phases, the boundary gapless modes are determined by bulk topological invariants. Based on developing an analytic method to solve higher-order boundary modes, we present $PT$-invariant $2$D topological insulators and $3$D topological semimetals that go beyond this bulk-boundary correspondence framework. With unchanged bulk topological invariant, their first-order boundaries undergo transitions separating different phases with second-order-boundary zero-modes. For the $2$D topological insulator, the helical edge modes appear at the transition point for two second-or…
Three dimensional Dirac semimetals are stable against weak potential disorder, but not against strong disorder. In the language of renormalization group, such stability stems from the irrelevance of weak disorder in the vicinity of the noninteracting Gaussian fixed point. However, beyond a threshold, potential disorder can take Dirac semimetals into a compressible diffusive metallic phase through a quantum phase transition (QPT), where density of states at zero energy, quasiparticle lifetime and metallic conductivity at $T=0$, are finite. Universal behavior of such unconventional QPT is descri…
Exotic physics often emerges around quantum criticality in metallic systems. Here we explore the nature of topological phase transitions between 3D double-Weyl semimetals and insulators (through annihilating double-Weyl nodes with opposite chiralities) in the presence of Coulomb interactions. From renormalization-group (RG) analysis, we find a non-Fermi-liquid quantum critical point (QCP) between the double-Weyl semimetals and insulators when artificially neglecting short-range interactions. However, it is shown that this non-Fermi-liquid QCP is actually unstable against nematic ordering when …
We investigate the phase diagram of a three-dimensional, time-reversal symmetric topological superconductor in the presence of charge impurities and random $s$-wave pairing. Combining complimentary field theoretic and numerical methods, we show that the quantum phase transition between two topologically distinct paired states (or thermal insulators), described by thermal Dirac semimetal, remains unaffected in the presence of sufficiently weak generic randomness. At stronger disorder, however, these two phases are separated by an intervening thermal metallic phase of diffusive Majorana fermions…
Topological Weyl semimetals, besides manifesting chiral anomaly, can also accommodate a disorder-driven unconventional quantum phase transition into a metallic phase. A fundamentally and practically important question in this regard concerns an experimentally measurable quantity that can clearly distinguish these two phases. We show that the optical conductivity while serving this purpose can also play the role of a bonafide order parameter across such disorder-driven semimetal-metal quantum phase transition by virtue of displaying distinct scaling behavior in semimetallic and metallic phases,…
We study the quantum phase diagram of a three dimensional non-interacting Dirac semimetal in the presence of either quenched axial or scalar potential disorder, by calculating the average and the typical density of states as well as the inverse participation ratio using numerically exact methods. We show that as a function of the disorder strength a half-filled (i.e. undoped) Dirac semimetal displays three distinct ground states, namely an incompressible semimetal, a compressible diffusive metal, and a localized Anderson insulator, in stark contrast to a conventional dirty metal that only supp…
We study three-dimensional Dirac fermions with weak finite-range scalar potential disorder. We show that even though disorder is perturbatively irrelevant at 3D Dirac points, nonperturbative effects from rare regions give rise to a nonzero density of states and a finite mean free path, with the transport at the Dirac point being dominated by hopping between rare regions. As one moves in chemical potential away from the Dirac point, there are interesting intermediate-energy regimes where the rare regions produce scattering resonances that determine the DC conductivity. We also discuss the inter…
We formulate the effective Gross-Neveu-Yukawa theory of the semimetal-insulator transitions on the honeycomb lattice and compute its quantum critical behavior near three (spatial) dimensions. We find that at the critical point Dirac fermions do not survive as coherent excitations and that the $\sim 1/r$ tail of the weak Coulomb interaction is an irrelevant coupling. The emergent Lorentz invariance near criticality implies a universal ratio of the low-temperature specific heats of the metallic and the rotational-symmetry-broken insulating phase.
Pursuing complementary field-theoretic and numerical methods, we here paint the global phase diagram of a three-dimensional dirty Weyl system. The generalized Harris criterion, augmented by a perturbative renormalization-group (RG) analysis shows that weak disorder is an irrelevant perturbation at the Weyl semimetal(WSM)-insulator quantum critical point (QCP). But, a metallic phase sets in through a quantum phase transition (QPT) at strong disorder across a multicritical point (MCP). The field theoretic predictions for the correlation length exponent $ν=2$ and dynamic scaling exponent $z=5/4$ …
The field theory of the semimetal-superconductor quantum phase transition for graphene and surface states of topological insulators is presented. The Lagrangian possesses the global U(1) symmetry, with the self-interacting complex bosonic order-parameter and the massless Dirac fermions coupled through a Yukawa term. The same theory also governs the quantum critical behavior of graphene near the transition towards the bond-density-wave (Kekule) insulator. The local U(1) gauged version of the theory which describes the quantum semimetal-superconductor transition in the ultimate critical regime i…
A novel gapped metallic state coined orthogonal Dirac semimetal is proposed in the honeycomb lattice in terms of $Z_{2}$ slave-spin representation of Hubbard model. This state corresponds to the disordered phase of slave-spin and has the same thermaldynamical and transport properties as usual Dirac semimetal but its singe-particle excitation is gapped and has nontrivial topological order due to the $Z_{2}$ gauge structure. The quantum phase transition from this orthogonal Dirac semimetal to usual Dirac semimetal is described by a mean-field decoupling with complementary fluctuation analysis an…
We investigate the electron properties of the monolayer and bilayer silicene which is the honeycomb lattice consist of silicon atoms, including the optical conductivity and charged impurity scattering, due to the quasipatricle Dirac-like behaviors near the K-point of silicene. The spin, valley, sublattice degrees of freedom are taken into consider in the multi-band tight-binding model. In momentum space, the scattering matrix which connects the two bare (without interaction) Green's functions in the quasiparticle momentum transport process, could be momentum-independent for the single impuirit…
We use a Kubo formalism to calculate both A.C. conductivity and D.C. transport properties of a dirty nodal loop semimetal. The optical conductivity as a function of photon energy $Ω$, exhibits an extended flat background $σ^{BG}$ as in graphene provided the scattering rate $Γ$ is small as compared to the radius of the nodal ring $b$ (in energy units). Modifications to the constant background arise for $Ω\le Γ$ and the minimum D.C. conductivity $σ^{DC} $ which is approached as $Ω^2/Γ^2$ as $Ω\rightarrow0$, is found to be proportional to $\frac{\sqrt{Γ^2+b^2}}{v_{F}}$ with $v_{F}$ the Fermi velo…
We review recent numerical studies of two-dimensional (2D) Dirac fermion theories that exhibit an unusual mechanism of topological protection against Anderson localization. These describe surface-state quasiparticles of time-reversal invariant, three-dimensional (3D) topological superconductors (TSCs), subject to the effects of quenched disorder. Numerics reveal a surprising connection between 3D TSCs in classes AIII, CI, and DIII, and 2D quantum Hall effects in classes A, C, and D. Conventional arguments derived from the non-linear $σ$-model picture imply that most TSC surface states should A…
Topological quantum phase transitions intrinsically intertwine self-similarity and topology of many-electron wave-functions, and divining them is one of the most significant ways to advance understanding in condensed matter physics. Our focus is to investigate an unconventional class of the transitions between insulators and Dirac semimetals whose description is beyond conventional pseudo relativistic Dirac Hamiltonian. At the transition without the long-range Coulomb interaction, the electronic energy dispersion along one direction behaves like a relativistic particle, linear in momentum, but…
We construct and discuss the field theory for tensorial nematic order parameter coupled to gapless four-component fermions at the quadratic band touching point in three (spatial) dimensions. Within a properly formulated epsilon-expansion this theory is found to have a quantum critical point, which describes the (presumably continuous) transition from the semimetal into a (nematic) Mott insulator. The latter phase breaks the rotational, but not the time-reversal symmetry, and may be relevant to materials such as gray tin or mercury telluride at low temperatures. The critical point represents a …
We study the phase diagram of an effective model of competing nematic and antiferromagnetic orders of interacting electrons on the Bernal-stacked honeycomb bilayer, as relevant for bilayer graphene. In the noninteracting limit, the model features a semimetallic ground state with quadratic band touching points at the Fermi level. Taking the effects of short-range interactions into account, we demonstrate the existence of an extended region in the mean-field phase diagram characterized by coexisting nematic and antiferromagnetic orders. By means of a renormalization group approach, we reveal tha…
Proposed as a fundamental symmetry describing our universe, spacetime supersymmetry (SUSY) has not been discovered yet in nature. Nonetheless, it has been predicted that SUSY may emerge in low-energy physics of quantum materials such as topological superconductors and Weyl semimetals. Here, by performing state-of-the-art sign-problem-free Majorana quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations of an interacting 2D topological superconductor, we show convincing evidences that the N=1 SUSY emerges at its edge quantum critical point (EQCP) while its bulk remains gapped and topologically nontrivial. Remark…
We clarify novel forms of scaling functions of conductance, critical conductance distribution and localization length in a disorder-driven quantum phase transition between band insulator and Weyl semimetal phases. Quantum criticality of the phase transition is controlled by a clean-limit fixed point with spatially anisotropic scale invariance. We argue that the anisotropic scale invariance is reflected on unconventional scaling function forms in the quantum phase transition. We verify the proposed scaling function forms in terms of transfer-matrix calculations of conductance and localization l…
We study a model for a quantum critical point in two spatial dimensions between a semimetallic phase, characterized by a stable quadratic Fermi node, and an ordered phase, in which the spectrum develops a band gap. The quantum critical behavior can be computed exactly, and we explicitly derive the scaling laws of various observables. While the order-parameter correlation function at criticality satisfies the usual power law with anomalous exponent $η_ϕ= 2$, the correlation length and the expectation value of the order parameter exhibit essential singularities upon approaching the quantum criti…
We study the Majorana surface states of higher-spin topological superconductors (TSCs) that could be realized in ultracold atomic systems or doped semimetals with spin-orbit coupling. As a paradigmatic example, we consider a model with p-wave pairing of spin-3/2 fermions that generalizes ${}^3\text{He-}B$. This model has coexisting linear and cubic dispersing Majorana surface bands. We show that these are unstable to interactions, which can generate a spontaneous surface thermal quantum Hall effect (TQHE). By contrast, nonmagnetic quenched disorder induces a surface conformal field theory (CFT…
Disorder such as impurities and dislocations in Weyl semimetals (SMs) drives a quantum critical point (QCP) where the density of states at the Weyl point gains a non-zero value. Near the QCP, the asymptotic low energy singularities of physical quantities are controlled by the critical exponents $ν$ and $z$. The nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate, which originates from the hyperfine coupling between a nuclear spin and long-range orbital currents in Weyl fermion systems, shows intriguing critical behavior. Based on the self-consistent Born approximation for impurities, we study the nuclear spi…
