Topological Numbers and the Weyl Semimetal

Abstract

Generalized Dirac monopoles in momentum space are constructed in even d+1 dimensions from the Weyl Hamiltonian in terms of Green's functions. In 3+1 spacetime dimensions, the (unit) charge of the monopole is equal to both the winding number and the Chern number, expressed as the integral of the Berry curvature. Based on the equivalence of the Chern and winding numbers, a chirally coupled field theory action is proposed for the Weyl semimetal phase. At the one loop order, the effective action yields both the chiral magnetic effect and the anomalous Hall effect. The Chern number appears as a coefficient in the conductivity, thus emphasizes the role of topology. The anomalous contribution of chiral fermions to transport phenomena is reflected as the gauge anomaly with the topological term $(\mathbf{E}\cdot \mathbf{B})$. Relevance of monopoles and Chern numbers for the semiclassical chiral kinetic theory is also discussed.

21 pages. Appendix added. Matches the published version. Sections on monopole construction are the corrected and extended version of the previous preprint arXiv:1406.5290

References in corpus (7)

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• Experimental observation of Weyl points
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