Double Dirac cones in band structures of periodic Schr\"odinger operators

TL;DR

This paper rigorously analyzes the emergence of double Dirac cones in the band structures of two-dimensional periodic Schr"odinger operators with super honeycomb lattice potentials, highlighting the role of additional translation symmetry.

Contribution

It characterizes super honeycomb lattice potentials and proves that such symmetries induce double Dirac cones at the a9 point, with numerical validation.

Findings

Double Dirac cones occur at the a9 point in certain symmetric potentials.

Additional translation symmetry is essential for the existence of double Dirac cones.

Breaking the symmetry causes the double cones to disappear.

Abstract

Dirac cones are conical singularities that occur near the degenerate points in band structures. Such singularities result in enormous unusual phenomena of the corresponding physical systems. This work investigates double Dirac cones that occur in the vicinity of a fourfold degenerate point in the band structures of certain operators. It is known that such degeneracy originates in the symmetries of the Hamiltonian. We use two dimensional periodic Schr\"odinger operators with novel designed symmetries as our prototype. First, we characterize admissible potentials, termed as super honeycomb lattice potentials. They are honeycomb lattices potentials with a key additional translation symmetry. It is rigorously justified that Schr\"odinger operators with such potentials almost guarantee the existence of double Dirac cones on the bands at the {\Gamma} point, the origin of the Brillouin zone. We further show that the additional translation symmetry is an indispensable ingredient by a perturbation analysis. Indeed, the double cones disappear if the additional translation symmetry is broken. Many numerical simulations are provided, which agree well with our analysis.