Santos Pires, Joao Pedro, Amorim, Bruno, Ferreira, Aires orcid.org/0000-0001-6017-8669 et al. (3 more authors) (2021) Breakdown of universality in three-dimensional Dirac semimetals with random impurities. Physical Review Research. 123183. ISSN 2643-1564
Abstract
Dirac-Weyl semimetals are unique three-dimensional (3D) phases of matter with gapless electrons and novel electrodynamic properties believed to be robust against weak perturbations. Here, we unveil the crucial influence of the disorder statistics and impurity diversity in the stability of incompressible electrons in 3D semimetals. Focusing on the critical role played by rare impurity configurations, we show that the abundance of low-energy resonances in the presence of diluted random potential wells endows rare localized zero-energy modes with statistical significance, thus lifting the nodal density of states. The strong nonperturbative effect here reported converts the 3D Dirac-Weyl semimetal into a compressible metal even at the lowest impurity densities. Our analytical results are validated by high-resolution real-space simulations in record-large 3D lattices with up to 536 000 000 orbitals.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Keywords: | Weyl semimetals,Dirac semimetals,Disorder,Avoided quantum criticality,Quantum criticality,KITE |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Physics (York) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number THE ROYAL SOCIETY URF\R\191021 EPSRC EP/V034030/1 |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 26 Feb 2021 09:40 |
Last Modified: | 16 Oct 2024 17:22 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.013183 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.013183 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:171589 |