Exotic surface Dirac fermions in Cerium-based compounds

ORAL

Abstract

Cerium-based compounds have received considerable attention due to their complicated antiferromagnetic (AFM) phase transitions at low temperatures as well as their large Kerr rotation angles. Here, we use angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) to study the detailed electronic structure of some of these compounds, and find unusual intercalating topological Dirac surface states in them. These exotic surface Dirac fermions appear to be very anisotropic, with protected degeneracy at the high symmetry Kramers' points. We also present a theoretical model to account for the observed topological surface states. Our finding of these unusual Dirac surface states in this class of strongly correlated materials calls for more in-depth investigations of topological properties of strongly correlated systems, and more elaborate theoretical work on the origin of such phases.

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Authors

  • Nasser Alidoust

    Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton University

  • Satya K. Kushwaha

    Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton Unversity, Princeton University

  • Aris Alexandradinata

    Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton University

  • Minggang Zeng

    Department of Physics, National University of Singapore

  • Suyang Xu

    Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton University

  • Madhab Neupane

    Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton University

  • Liu Chang

    Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton University

  • Ilya Belopolski

    Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton University, Princeton Univ

  • Guang Bian

    Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton University

  • Daniel Sanchez

    Department of Physics, Princeton University

  • Pavel Shibayev

    Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton University

  • Hsin Lin

    National University of Singapore, Department of Physics, National University of Singapore

  • B. Andrei Bernevig

    Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton University, Princeton Univ

  • Robert J. Cava

    Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton University

  • Zahid Hasan

    Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton University