Generic Coexistence of Fermi Arcs and Dirac Cones on the Surface of Time-Reversal Invariant Weyl Semimetals

Alexander Lau, Klaus Koepernik, Jeroen van den Brink, Carmine Ortix

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

The hallmark of Weyl semimetals is the existence of open constant-energy contours on their surface - the so-called Fermi arcs - connecting Weyl points. Here, we show that for time-reversal symmetric realizations of Weyl semimetals these Fermi arcs in many cases coexist with closed Fermi pockets originating from surface Dirac cones pinned to time-reversal invariant momenta. The existence of Fermi pockets is required for certain Fermi-arc connectivities due to additional restrictions imposed by the six $\mathbb{Z}_2$ topological invariants characterizing a generic time-reversal invariant Weyl semimetal. We show that a change of the Fermi-arc connectivity generally leads to a different topology of the surface Fermi surface, and identify the half-Heusler compound LaPtBi under in-plane compressive strain as a material that realizes this surface Lifshitz transition. We also discuss universal features of this coexistence in quasi-particle interference spectra.
Original languageUndefined/Unknown
Article number076801
JournalPhysical Review Letters
Volume119
Issue number7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 18 Aug 2017

Keywords

  • Dirac fermions
  • Topological phases of matter
  • Weyl fermions

Cite this