Quantum transport in 3D Weyl semimetals: Is there a metal-insulator transition?
Abstract
We calculate the transport properties of three-dimensional Weyl fermions in a disordered environment. The resulting conductivity depends only on the Fermi energy and the scattering rate. First we study the conductivity at the spectral node for a fixed scattering rate and obtain a continuous transition from an insulator at weak disorder to a metal at stronger disorder. In the self-consistent Born approximation the scattering rate depends on the Fermi energy. Then it is crucial that the limits of the conductivity for a vanishing Fermi energy and a vanishing scattering rate do not commute. As a result, there is also metallic behavior in the phase with vanishing scattering rate and only a quantum critical point remains as an insulating state.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1501.00268,
title = {Quantum transport in 3D Weyl semimetals: Is there a metal-insulator transition?},
author = {K. Ziegler},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1501.00268},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
9 pages, 5 figures