1. Chiral sound waves in strained Weyl semimetals
- Author
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María A. H. Vozmediano, M. N. Chernodub, Institut Denis Poisson (IDP), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Tours (UT)-Université d'Orléans (UO), Laboratory of Physics of Living Matter [Vladivostok], School of Biomedicine [Vladivostok], Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU)-Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU), Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid (ICMM), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas [Madrid] (CSIC), This paper was partially supported by Spanish MECD grant FIS2014-57432-P, the Comunidad de Madrid MAD2D-CM Program (S2013/MIT-3007),Grant 3.6261.2017/8.9 of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Russia, and Spanish-French mobility project PIC2016FR6/PICS07480., and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Tours-Université d'Orléans (UO)
- Subjects
Chiral anomaly ,Physics ,High Energy Physics - Theory ,Field (physics) ,Condensed matter physics ,Condensed Matter - Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics ,High Energy Physics::Lattice ,High Energy Physics::Phenomenology ,Charge density ,Weyl semimetal ,FOS: Physical sciences ,02 engineering and technology ,021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology ,01 natural sciences ,Magnetic field ,High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) ,[PHYS.HPHE]Physics [physics]/High Energy Physics - Phenomenology [hep-ph] ,0103 physical sciences ,Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) ,[PHYS.COND.CM-SCE]Physics [physics]/Condensed Matter [cond-mat]/Strongly Correlated Electrons [cond-mat.str-el] ,010306 general physics ,0210 nano-technology ,Charge density wave ,Plasmon ,Excitation - Abstract
We show that a strained wire of a Weyl semimetal supports a new type of gapless excitation, the chiral sound wave (CSW). It is a longitudinal charge density wave analog to the chiral magnetic wave predicted in the quark-gluon plasma but driven by an elastic axial pseudo-magnetic field. It involves the axial-axial-axial contribution to the chiral anomaly which couples the chiral charge density to the elastic axial gauge field. The chiral sound is unidirectional: it propagates along the elastic magnetic field and not in the opposite direction. The CSW may propagate for long distances as it does not couple directly to quickly dissipating electromagnetic plasmons, while its damping is controlled by the slow chirality flip rate. We propose an experimental setup to directly detect the chiral sound, which is excited by mechanical vibrations of the crystal lattice in the GHz frequency range. Our findings contribute to a new trend, the chiral acoustics, in strained Weyl semimetals., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures; v2: minor changes, published version
- Published
- 2019