Quantum oscillations as a probe of interaction effects in Weyl semimetals in a magnetic field

TL;DR

This paper investigates how interaction effects influence quantum oscillations in Weyl semimetals under magnetic fields, revealing that these effects modify Fermi arc properties and can be experimentally detected through oscillation measurements.

Contribution

It provides an exact spectral analysis of Weyl semimetal surface states with interactions and magnetic fields, highlighting how these factors alter quantum oscillation periods.

Findings

Interaction effects modify Fermi arc length and Weyl node separation.

Quantum oscillation period depends on magnetic field orientation.

Interaction-induced changes are measurable in experiments.

Abstract

The Weyl semimetal surface is modeled by applying the Bogolyubov boundary conditions, in which the quasiparticles have an infinite Dirac mass outside the semimetal. For a Weyl semimetal shaped as a slab of finite thickness, we derive an exact spectral equation for the quasiparticle states and obtain the spectrum of the bulk as well as surface Fermi arc modes. We also show that, in the presence of the magnetic field, the separation between Weyl nodes in momentum space and the length of the Fermi arcs in the reciprocal space are affected by the interactions. As a result, we find that the period of oscillations of the density of states related to closed magnetic orbits involving Fermi arcs has a nontrivial dependence on the orientation of the magnetic field projection in the plane of the semimetal surface. We conclude that the momentum space separation between Weyl nodes and its modification due the interaction effects in the magnetic field can be measured in the experimental studies of quantum oscillations.