Weyl semimetal from spontaneous inversion symmetry breaking in pyrochlore oxides

Abstract

We study the electronic properties of strongly spin-orbit coupled electrons on the elastic pyrochlore lattice. Akin to the Peierls transition in one-dimensional systems, the coupling of the lattice to the electronic degrees of freedom can stabilize a spontaneous deformation of the crystal. This deformation corresponds to a breathing mode, which breaks the inversion symmetry. We find that for intermediate values of the staggered strain, the inversion-symmetry broken phase realizes a topological Weyl semimetal. In the temperature-elasticity phase diagram, the Weyl semimetal shows a reentrant phase behavior: it can be reached from a symmetric phase realized both at higher and at lower temperatures. The symmetric phase is a Dirac semimetal, which is protected by the non-symmorphic space group of the pyrochlore lattice. Beyond a critical value of the staggered strain, the symmetry-broken phase is a fully gapped trivial insulator. The surface states of the Weyl semimetal form open Fermi arcs and we observe that their connectivity depends on the termination of the crystal. In particular, for the $\{111\}$ films, the semiclassical closed electronic orbits of the surface states in a magnetic field cross the bulk either twice, four, six or twelve times. We demonstrate how one can tune the number of bulk crossings through a Lifshitz-like transition of the Fermi arcs, which we call Weyl-Lifshitz transition, by applying a surface potential. Our results offer a route to a topological Weyl semimetal in nonmagnetic materials and might be relevant for pyrochlore oxides with heavy transition-metal ions such as alloys of iridates.

arXiv comment18 pages, 11 figures

References in corpus (52)

• Topological Insulators
• Topological insulators and superconductors
• Electronic Structure of Pyrochlore Iridates: From Topological Dirac Metal to Mott Insulator
• Discovery of a Three-dimensional Topological Dirac Semimetal, Na3Bi
• Weyl Semimetal in a Topological Insulator Multilayer
• Dirac semimetal and topological phase transitions in A3Bi (A=Na, K, Rb)
• Dirac semimetal in three dimensions
• Topological nodal semimetals
• Chern semi-metal and Quantized Anomalous Hall Effect in HgCr2Se4
• Weyl semimetal phase in non-centrosymmetric transition metal monophosphides
• Magnetic Pyrochlore Oxides
• Correlated quantum phenomena in the strong spin-orbit regime
• Phase transition between the quantum spin Hall and insulator phases in 3D: emergence of a topological gapless phase
• Mott physics and band topology in materials with strong spin-orbit interaction
• Topological response in Weyl semimetals and the chiral anomaly
• Classification of stable three-dimensional Dirac semimetals with nontrivial topology
• Quantum Hall effects in a Weyl Semi-Metal: possible application in pyrochlore Iridates
• Recent developments in transport phenomena in Weyl semimetals
• Multi-Weyl Topological Semimetals Stabilized by Point Group Symmetry
• Quantum Oscillations from Surface Fermi-Arcs in Weyl and Dirac Semi-Metals
• Electromagnetic Response of Weyl Semimetals
• Quantum transport evidence for a three-dimensional Dirac semimetal phase in Cd3As2
• Weyl semimetal with broken time reversal and inversion symmetries
• Topological and magnetic phases of interacting electrons in the pyrochlore iridates
• Time-reversal invariant realization of the Weyl semimetal phase
• Topological insulators and metal-insulator transition in the pyrochlore iridates
• Weyl semimetals from noncentrosymmetric topological insulators
• Axion response in Weyl semimetals
• Topological Order and Absence of Band Insulators at Integer Filling in Non-Symmorphic Crystals
• Triangle anomaly in Weyl semi-metals
• Topological non-symmorphic crystalline insulators
• Friedel oscillations due to Fermi arcs in Weyl semimetals
• Dispersion of Fermi arcs in Weyl semimetals and their evolutions to Dirac cones
• Universal phase diagrams for the quantum spin Hall systems
• Breathing Pyrochlore Lattice Realized in A-Site Ordered Spinel Oxides LiGaCr4O8 and LiInCr4O8
• Magnetic orders and topological phases from f-d exchange in pyrochlore iridates
• Flat bands with higher Chern number in pyrochlore slabs
• Competing Exotic Topological Insulator Phases in Transition Metal Oxides on the Pyrochlore Lattice with Distortion
• Topological Crystalline Insulators in Transition Metal Oxides
• Emergent topological phenomena in thin films of pyrochlore iridates
• Pyrochlore electrons under pressure, heat and field: shedding light on the iridates
• Topology and Interactions in a Frustrated Slab: Tuning from Weyl Semimetals to C > 1 Fractional Chern Insulators
• Topological Insulators from Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking Induced by Electron Correlation on Pyrochlore Lattices
• Experimental Realization of a Quantum Breathing Pyrochlore Antiferromagnet
• Filling Control of the Pyrochlore Oxide Y2Ir2O7
• Metamagnetism of itinerant electrons in multi-layer ruthenates
• Interacting Weyl semimetals: characterization via the topological Hamiltonian and its breakdown
• Topological phases in layered pyrochlore oxide thin films along the [111] direction
• Theory of topological quantum phase transitions in 3D noncentrosymmetric systems
• Bond order wave instabilities in doped frustrated antiferromagnets: "Valence bond solids" at fractional filling
• Magnetic Behaviour of the $B{i}_{2-y}S{r}_{y}I{r}_2{O}_7$ Pyrochlore Solid Solution
• Observation of Fermi Arc Surface States in a Topological Metal: A New Type of 2D Electron Gas beyond Z2 Topological Insulators

Cited by in corpus (26)

• Observation of Weyl nodes in TaAs
• Higher-order topological insulators and semimetals on the breathing Kagome and pyrochlore lattices
• Nodal-chain metals
• MoTe2: A Type-II Weyl Topological Metal
• Time-Reversal-Breaking Weyl Fermions in Magnetic Heusler Alloys
• Observation of Weyl nodes and Fermi arcs in TaP
• Arc-tunable Weyl Fermion metallic state in Mo${}_x$W${}_{1-x}$Te${}_2$
• Robust doubly charged nodal lines and nodal surfaces in centrosymmetric systems
• Strain induced Chiral Magnetic Effect in Weyl semimetals
• Spin-Orbit Semimetals in the Layer Groups
• Phase diagram of pyrochlore iridates: all-in-all-out magnetic ordering and non-Fermi liquid properties
• Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida interaction in Weyl semimetals
• Topological charges of three-dimensional Dirac semimetals with rotation symmetry
• Origin of the Magnetic Spin Hall Effect: Spin Current Vorticity in the Fermi Sea
• Flat bands and Dirac cones in breathing lattices
• Distinct evolutions of Weyl fermion quasiparticles and Fermi arcs with bulk band topology in Weyl semimetals
• Superconductivity near a ferroelectric quantum critical point in ultralow-density Dirac materials
• Observation of Flat Bands and Dirac Cones in a Pyrochlore Lattice Superconductor
• Advances in Complex Oxide Quantum Materials Through New Approaches to Molecular Beam Epitaxy
• Approaching the quantum critical point in a highly-correlated all-in-all-out antiferromagnet
• Strongly-coupled quantum critical point in an all-in-all-out antiferromagnet
• Bogoliubov Fermi surfaces from pairing of emergent $j=3/2$ fermions on the pyrochlore lattice
• Topological electronic structure and Weyl points in nonsymmorphic hexagonal materials
• On the possibility of magnetic Weyl fermions in non-symmorphic compound PtFeSb
• Multi higher-order Dirac and nodal line semimetals
• Fidelity susceptibility for Lifshitz geometries via Lifshitz Holography