Selective Phonon Damping in Topological Semimetals

TL;DR

This paper investigates how flat surface states in topological crystalline semimetals like SrIrO3 influence phonon damping, proposing a method to detect these states through their unique effects on phonon modes.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to detect topological surface states by analyzing their impact on phonon damping mechanisms in SrIrO3.

Findings

Certain phonon modes exhibit distinct damping behaviors due to surface states.

Surface state effects on phonons can serve as indirect evidence of topological features.

Proposed experimental techniques to measure phonon damping related to surface states.

Abstract

Topological semimetals are characterized by their intriguing Fermi surfaces (FSs) such as Weyl and Dirac points, or nodal FS, and their associated surface states. Among them, topological crystalline semimetals, in the presence of strong spin-orbit coupling, possess a nodal FS protected by non-symmorphic lattice symmetries. In particular, it was theoretically proposed that $\mathrm{SrIrO}_{3}$ exhibits a bulk nodal ring due to glide symmetries, as well as flat two-dimensional surface states related to chiral and mirror symmetries. However, due to the semimetallic nature of the bulk, direct observation of these surface states is difficult. Here we study the effect of flat-surface states on phonon modes for $\mathrm{SrIrO}_{3}$ side surfaces. We show that particular phonon modes, based on mirror symmetry, have qualitatively different damping mechanisms due to the surface states which could be used to infer their existence. Experimental techniques for such measurements are also discussed.