Breakdown of the Chiral Anomaly in Weyl Semimetals in a Strong Magnetic Field

Abstract

The low-energy quasiparticles of Weyl semimetals are a condensed-matter realization of the Weyl fermions introduced in relativistic field theory. Chiral anomaly, the nonconservation of the chiral charge under parallel electric and magnetic fields, is arguably the most important phenomenon of Weyl semimetals and has been explained as an imbalance between the occupancies of the gapless, zeroth Landau levels with opposite chiralities. This widely accepted picture has served as the basis for subsequent studies. Here we report the breakdown of the chiral anomaly in Weyl semimetals in a strong magnetic field based on ab initio calculations. A sizable energy gap that depends sensitively on the direction of the magnetic field may open up due to the mixing of the zeroth Landau levels associated with the opposite-chirality Weyl points that are away from each other in the Brillouin zone. Our study provides a theoretical framework for understanding a wide range of phenomena closely related to the chiral anomaly in topological semimetals, such as magnetotransport, thermoelectric responses, and plasmons, to name a few.

6+7 pages, 5+6 figures; published version

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• Magnetic-field-induced nonlinear transport in HfTe5
• Quantum oscillation beyond the quantum limit in pseudospin Dirac materials
• Topological van Hove singularities at phase transitions in Weyl metals
• Pairwise annihilation of Weyl nodes induced by magnetic fields in the Hofstadter regime
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• Theory of phonon instabilities in Weyl semimetals at high magnetic fields
• Field manipulation of Weyl modes in an ideal Dirac semimetal
• Magneto tunnel conductance across twisted Weyl semimetal junctions
• Breakdown of chiral anomaly and emergent phases in Weyl semimetals under orbital magnetic fields