Dissipationless conductance in a topological coaxial cable

Abstract

We present a dynamical mechanism leading to dissipationless conductance, whose quantized value is controllable, in a (3+1)-dimensional electronic system. The mechanism is exemplified by a theory of Weyl fermions coupled to a Higgs field--also known as an axion insulator. We show that the insertion of an axial gauge flux can induce vortex lines in the Higgs field, similarly to the development of vortices in a superconductor upon the insertion of magnetic flux. We further show that the necessary axial gauge flux can be generated using Rashba spin-orbit coupling or a magnetic field. Vortex lines in the Higgs field are known to bind chiral fermionic modes, each of which serves as a one-way channel for electric charge with conductance $e^2/h$. Combining these elements, we present a physical picture, the "topological coaxial cable," illustrating how the value of the quantized conductance could be controlled in such an axion insulator.

4+2 pages, 2 figures

References in corpus (9)

• Quantum Spin Hall Effect and Topological Phase Transition in HgTe Quantum Wells
• Topological response in Weyl semimetals and the chiral anomaly
• Topological Defects and Gapless Modes in Insulators and Superconductors
• Electron fractionalization in two-dimensional graphenelike structures
• Chiral anomaly, Charge Density Waves, and Axion Strings from Weyl Semimetals
• Negative longitudinal magnetoresistance in Dirac and Weyl metals
• Chiral Gauge Theory for Graphene
• Axion topological field theory of topological superconductors
• Effective action and electromagnetic response of topological superconductors and Majorana-mass Weyl fermions

Cited by in corpus (17)

• Topological invariants of Floquet systems: General formulation, special properties, and Floquet topological defects
• Chiral anomaly from strain-induced gauge fields in Dirac and Weyl semimetals
• Antichiral edge states in a modified Haldane nanoribbon
• Inhomogeneous Weyl and Dirac semimetals: Transport in axial magnetic fields and Fermi arc surface states from pseudo Landau levels
• Topological one-way fiber of second Chern number
• Pseudo-electromagnetic fields in topological semimetals
• Landau levels, Bardeen polynomials and Fermi arcs in Weyl semimetals: the who's who of the chiral anomaly
• Tunable axial gauge fields in engineered Weyl semimetals: Semiclassical analysis and optical lattice implementations
• Fractional Quantum Hall Effect in Weyl Semimetals
• Charge density waves in Weyl semimetals
• Unidirectional Maxwellian Spin Waves
• Topologically protected Landau level in the vortex lattice of a Weyl superconductor
• Topological defects in Floquet systems: Anomalous chiral modes and topological invariant
• Two-dimensional Weyl nodal-line semimetal and antihelical edge states in a modified Kane-Mele model
• Tunable chiral anomalies and coherent transport on a honeycomb lattice
• Chiral fermions on lattice axion strings
• Fermion zero modes in a $Z_2$ vortex background