English

Chern-Simons terms in the 3D Weyl semi-metals

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2014-05-30 v1

Abstract

Based on some theoretical arguments, it has been suggested that electromagnetic response of 3D Weyl semi-metals with non-zero chiral- chemical potential may have a Chern-Simons term, 12kμϵμνρσFνρAσ\frac{1}{2}k_\mu \epsilon^{\mu\nu\rho\sigma}F_{\nu\rho}A_\sigma, in their effective action for the gauge field. An independent numerical study has shown that such a term is absent in a similar system. In this paper, we investigate the non-equilibrium and equilibrium response of 3D Weyl semi-metals. We argue that the controversy in literature stems from the difference in response of these two distinct states. We then develop a method to deal with well-known ambiguities in quantum electrodynamics in 3D (QED3+1_{3+1}) with non-zero chiral-chemical potential and calculate the Chern-Simons term unambiguously. We find that time-like Chern-Simons term can exist in non-equilibrium conditions. We observe that there does not exist any chiral-magnetic effect in equilibrium and anomalous Hall effect replaces it.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1405.7416,
  title  = {Chern-Simons terms in the 3D Weyl semi-metals},
  author = {Hamid Omid},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1405.7416},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

six pages, two figures