Tunable topological Weyl semimetal from simple-cubic lattices with staggered fluxes

Jian-Hua Jiang
Phys. Rev. A 85, 033640 – Published 28 March 2012

Abstract

Three-dimensional Weyl fermions are found to emerge from simple-cubic lattices with staggered fluxes. The mechanism is a gapping of the quadratic-band touching by time-reversal-symmetry-breaking hoppings. The system exhibits a rich phase diagram where the number of Weyl fermions and their topological charges are tunable via plaquette fluxes. The Weyl semimetal state is shown to be the intermediate phase between a nontopological semimetal and a quantum anomalous Hall insulator. The transitions between those phases can be understood through the evolution of the Weyl points as Berry-flux insertion processes. As the Weyl points move and split (or merge) through tuning of the plaquette fluxes, the Fermi arcs and surface states undergo significant manipulation. We also propose a possible scheme to realize the model in ultracold fermions in optical lattices with artificial gauge fields.

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  • Received 2 January 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.85.033640

©2012 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Jian-Hua Jiang*

  • Department of Condensed Matter Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel

  • *jianhua.jiang.phys@gmail.com

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Vol. 85, Iss. 3 — March 2012

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