Magneto-optical Kerr effect and signature of the chiral anomaly in a Weyl semimetal in a magnetic field

Abstract

One striking property of the Landau level spectrum of a Weyl semimetal (WSM) is the existence of a chiral Landau level, in which the electrons propagate unidirectionally along the magnetic field. This linearly dispersive level influences the optical properties of WSMs. For example, it was recently shown that a complete optical valley polarization is achievable in a time-reversal symmetric Weyl semimetal placed in a magnetic field\cite% {Bertrand2019}. This effect originates from inter-Landau level transitions involving the chiral Landau level and requires a tilt of the Weyl cones. In this paper, we show how the magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE) is modified in a WSM\ with tilted Weyl cones in comparison with its behavior in a normal metal and how a valley polarization can be detected using MOKE. We study both the Faraday (longitudinal) and Voigt (transverse) configurations for light incident on a semi-infinite WSM surface with no Fermi arcs. We use a minimal model of a WSM with four tilted Weyl nodes related by mirror and time-reversal symmetry. In the Voigt configuration, a large peak of the Kerr angle occurs at the plasmon frequency. We show that the blueshift in frequency of this peak with increasing magnetic field is a signature of the chiral anomaly in the MOKE.

16 pages with 11 PDF figures

References in corpus (6)

• Topological response in Weyl semimetals and the chiral anomaly
• Giant Faraday rotation in single- and multilayer graphene
• Collective modes of the massless Dirac plasma
• Chiral anomaly and optical absorption in Weyl semimetals
• Friedel oscillations due to Fermi arcs in Weyl semimetals
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• Chiral anomaly in Weyl semimetals from spin current injection
• Van Roosbroeck's equations with topological terms: the case of Weyl semimetals
• Tri-component-pairing chiral superconductivity on the honeycomb lattice with mixed $s$- and $d$-wave symmetries