Diffusive transport in Weyl semimetals

Rudro R. Biswas, Shinsei Ryu

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46 Scopus citations

Abstract

Diffusion, a ubiquitous phenomenon in nature, is a consequence of particle number conservation and locality in systems with sufficient damping. In this paper, we consider diffusive processes in the bulk of Weyl semimetals, which are exotic quantum materials, recently of considerable interest. In order to do this, we first explicitly implement the analytical scheme by which disorder with anisotropic scattering amplitude is incorporated into the diagrammatic response-function formalism for calculating the "diffuson". The result, thus, obtained is consistent with transport coefficients evaluated from the Boltzmann transport equation or the renormalized uniform current vertex calculation as it should be. We, thus, demonstrate that the computation of the diffusion coefficient should involve the transport lifetime and not the quasiparticle lifetime. Using this method, we then calculate the density response function in Weyl semimetals and discover an unconventional diffusion process that is significantly slower than conventional diffusion. This gives rise to relaxation processes that exhibit stretched exponential decay instead of the usual exponential diffusive relaxation. This result is then explained using a model of thermally excited quasiparticles diffusing with diffusion coefficients which are strongly dependent on their energies. We elucidate the roles of the various energy and time scales involved in this novel process and propose an experiment by which this process may be observed.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number014205
JournalPhysical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics
Volume89
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 27 2014
Externally publishedYes

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Condensed Matter Physics

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