Quantum oscillations without magnetic field

Abstract

When magnetic field $B$ is applied to a metal, nearly all observable quantities exhibit oscillations periodic in $1/B$. Such quantum oscillations reflect the fundamental reorganization of electron states into Landau levels as a canonical response of the metal to the applied magnetic field. We predict here that, remarkably, in the recently discovered Dirac and Weyl semimetals quantum oscillations can occur in the complete absence of magnetic field. These zero-field quantum oscillations are driven by elastic strain which, in the space of the low-energy Dirac fermions, acts as a chiral gauge potential. We propose an experimental setup in which the strain in a thin film (or nanowire) can generate pseudomagnetic field $b$ as large as 15T and demonstrate the resulting de Haas-van Alphen and Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations periodic in $1/b$.

8 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (5)

• The Chiral Magnetic Effect
• Quantum transport evidence for a three-dimensional Dirac semimetal phase in Cd3As2
• Chiral anomaly and transport in Weyl metals
• Chiral anomaly from strain-induced gauge fields in Dirac and Weyl semimetals
• Inhomogeneous Weyl and Dirac semimetals: Transport in axial magnetic fields and Fermi arc surface states from pseudo Landau levels

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Consistent Chiral Kinetic Theory in Weyl Materials: Chiral Magnetic Plasmons
• Tunable axial gauge fields in engineered Weyl semimetals: Semiclassical analysis and optical lattice implementations
• Chiral magnetic plasmons in anomalous relativistic matter
• Pseudomagnetic helicons
• Pseudo-Landau levels of Bogoliubov quasiparticles in strained nodal superconductors
• Origin of Bardeen-Zumino current in lattice models of Weyl semimetals
• Quantum oscillations and Dirac-Landau levels in Weyl superconductors
• Chiral response in lattice models of Weyl materials