Chiral magnetic effect by synthetic gauge fields

TL;DR

This paper investigates how synthetic gauge fields in a Weyl metal can dynamically generate chiral chemical potential and induce chiral magnetic currents, with potential detection via time-of-flight imaging.

Contribution

It demonstrates the dynamical generation of chiral chemical potential and chiral magnetic effects in a Weyl metal using synthetic gauge fields in an optical lattice.

Findings

Spectral flow and chiral magnetic current emerge under parallel synthetic electric and magnetic fields.

Chiral chemical potential can be probed by time-of-flight imaging.

Numerical solutions of the Boltzmann equation reveal the dynamics of spectral flow.

Abstract

We study the dynamical generation of the chiral chemical potential in a Weyl metal constructed from a three-dimensional optical lattice and subject to synthetic gauge fields. By numerically solving the Boltzmann equation with the Berry curvature in the presence of parallel synthetic electric and magnetic fields, we find that the spectral flow and the ensuing chiral magnetic current emerge. We show that the spectral flow and the chiral chemical potential can be probed by time-of-flight imaging.