Signature of chiral anomaly in TaP through phonon dynamics

ORAL

Abstract

Recent theoretical predictions discussed the possibility of detecting chiral anomaly based on phonon spectra as the exotic electronic degrees of freedom in a Weyl semimetal play an important role to influence the phonon structure. I will discuss measurements made of phonon excitations on a high-quality single crystal sample of type-I Weyl semimetal TaP using inelastic neutron and x-ray scattering spectroscopies. These measurements indicate the presence of phonon softening near the Weyl nodes which is driven by the coupling between the chiral Weyl fermions and phonons. We also observe that this coupling differs between the W1 and W2 Weyl nodes. These results provide a method to extract valuable information about the sought-after electron-phonon coupling strength.

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Presenters

  • Thanh Nguyen

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nuclear Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Authors

  • Thanh Nguyen

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nuclear Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Mingda Li

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nuclear Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nuclear Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Fei Han

    Nuclear Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Nina Andrejevic

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Songxue Chi

    Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Quantum Condensed Matter Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, TN 37831, Neutron Scattering Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Lab

  • Jaime Fernandez-Baca

    Oak Ridge National Laboratory

  • Masaaki Matsuda

    Neutron Sciences Directorate, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Neutron Science Directorate, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Lab

  • Ahmet Alatas

    Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne Natl Lab, Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory

  • Esen Alp

    APS, Argonne National Lab, Argonne National Laboratory, Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne