Coexistence of Fermi arcs with two dimensional gapless Dirac states

Abstract

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 semimetal has no projection parallel to the domain wall. This is corroborated by a numerical simulation of a tight binding model. We further calculate the optical conductivity of the coexisting interface states, which can be used to identify them through interference experiments.

4+3 pages, 4 figures. Minor changes; version as published

References in corpus (6)

• The electronic properties of graphene
• Topological Insulators with Inversion Symmetry
• Topological Field Theory of Time-Reversal Invariant Insulators
• Topological response in Weyl semimetals and the chiral anomaly
• Consequences of a condensed matter realization of Lorentz violating QED in Weyl semi-metals
• Chiral anomaly and optical absorption in Weyl semimetals

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Inhomogeneous Weyl and Dirac semimetals: Transport in axial magnetic fields and Fermi arc surface states from pseudo Landau levels
• Tunable axial gauge fields in engineered Weyl semimetals: Semiclassical analysis and optical lattice implementations
• Fermionic dualities with axial gauge fields
• Exotic surface states in hybrid structures of topological insulators and Weyl semimetals