# Hear the Sound of Weyl Fermions

**Authors:** Zhida Song, Xi Dai

arXiv: 1901.09926 · 2019-06-26

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel type of acoustic collective mode called chiral zero sound in Weyl semimetals under magnetic fields, which propagates along the field and exhibits unique quantum oscillations.

## Contribution

It proposes the existence of chiral zero sound in Weyl semimetals, stabilized under the chiral limit, and describes its properties and potential experimental signatures.

## Key findings

- Chiral zero sound propagates only along magnetic fields in Weyl semimetals.
- Sound velocity is proportional to magnetic field strength in weak fields.
- Quantum oscillations in thermal conductivity may arise from chiral zero sound dynamics.

## Abstract

Quasiparticles and collective modes are two fundamental aspects that characterize a quantum matter in addition to its ground state features. For example, the low energy physics for Fermi liquid phase in He-III was featured not only by Fermionic quasiparticles near the chemical potential but also by fruitful collective modes in the long-wave limit, including several different sound waves that can propagate through it under different circumstances. On the other hand, it is very difficult for sound waves to be carried by the electron liquid in the ordinary metals, due to the fact that long-range Coulomb interaction among electrons will generate plasmon gap for ordinary electron density fluctuation and thus prohibits the propagation of sound waves through it. In the present paper, we propose a unique type of acoustic collective modes in Weyl semimetals under the magnetic field called chiral zero sound. The chiral zero sound can be stabilized under so-called "chiral limit", where the intra-valley scattering time is much shorter than the inter-valley one, and only propagates along an external magnetic field for Weyl semimetals with multiple-pairs of Weyl points. The sound velocity of the chiral zero sound is proportional to the field strength in the weak field limit, whereas it oscillates dramatically in the strong field limit, generating an entirely new mechanism for quantum oscillations through the dynamics of neutral bosonic excitation, which may manifest itself in the thermal conductivity measurements under magnetic field.

## Full text

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## Figures

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## References

57 references — full list in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/1901.09926/full.md

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/1901.09926