Effects of the Dirac cone tilt in two-dimensional Dirac semimetal

TL;DR

This paper investigates how tilting the Dirac cone in two-dimensional Dirac semimetals influences their low-energy electronic properties, revealing that tilt induces disorder effects and Fermi arcs, with Coulomb interactions not qualitatively changing these effects.

Contribution

It provides a renormalization group analysis showing how Dirac cone tilt affects disorder, Coulomb interaction, and low-energy phases in 2D Dirac semimetals, highlighting the emergence of Fermi arcs and stable quantum critical states.

Findings

Tilted Dirac cones generate dominant disorder leading to diffusive metal behavior.

Tilt causes the formation of bulk Fermi arcs replacing point contact.

Coulomb interactions do not qualitatively alter the low-energy effects of tilt.

Abstract

Two-dimensional Dirac semimetal with tilted Dirac cone has recently attracted increasing interest. Tilt of Dirac cone can be realized in a number of materials, including deformed graphene, surface state of topological crystalline insulator, and certain organic compound. We study how Dirac cone tilting affects the low-energy properties by presenting a renormalization group analysis of the Coulomb interaction and quenched disorder. Random scalar potential or random vector potential along the tilting direction cannot exist on its own as it always dynamically generates a new type of disorder, which dominates at low energies and turns the system into a compressible diffusive metal. Consequently, the fermions acquire a finite disorder scattering rate. Moreover, the isolated band-touching point is replaced by a bulk Fermi arc in the Brillouin zone. These results are not qualitatively changed when the Coulomb interaction is incorporated. In comparison, random mass and random vector potential along the non-tilting direction can exist individually, without generating other types of disorder. They both suppress tilt at low energies, and do not produce bulk Fermi arc. Upon taking the Coulomb interaction into account, the system enters into a stable quantum critical state, in which the fermion field acquires a finite anomalous dimension but the dynamical exponent $z=1$. These results indicate that Dirac cone tilt does lead to some qualitatively different low-energy properties comparing to the untilted system.