Observation of a singular Weyl point surrounded by charged nodal walls in PtGa

TL;DR

This study experimentally observes a unique unpaired Weyl point in PtGa, surrounded by charged nodal walls, challenging the traditional pairing rule and expanding understanding of topological band crossings in condensed matter.

Contribution

It demonstrates the existence of a singular Weyl point without a connecting Fermi arc, surrounded by charged nodal walls, using combined spectroscopy and theoretical calculations.

Findings

Identified a singular Weyl point at the Brillouin zone center in PtGa.

Showed the Weyl point is surrounded by charged nodal walls at the zone boundaries.

Confirmed the absence of Fermi arcs connecting the Weyl point's surface projection.

Abstract

Constrained by the Nielsen-Ninomiya no-go theorem, in all so-far experimentally determined Weyl semimetals (WSMs) the Weyl points (WPs) always appear in pairs in the momentum space with no exception. As a consequence, Fermi arcs occur on surfaces which connect the projections of the WPs with opposite chiral charges. However, this situation can be circumvented in the case of unpaired WP, without relevant surface Fermi arc connecting its surface projection, appearing singularly, while its Berry curvature field is absorbed by nontrivial charged nodal walls. Here, combining angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy with density functional theory calculations, we show experimentally that a singular Weyl point emerges in PtGa at the center of the Brillouin zone (BZ), which is surrounded by closed Weyl nodal walls located at the BZ boundaries and there is no Fermi arc connecting its surface projection. Our results reveal that nontrivial band crossings of different dimensionalities can emerge concomitantly in condensed matter, while their coexistence ensures the net topological charge of different dimensional topological objects to be zero. Our observation extends the applicable range of the original Nielsen-Ninomiya no-go theorem which was derived from zero dimensional paired WPs with opposite chirality.