arXiv · 1705.01424
Hourglass Dirac Chain Metal in Rhenium Dioxide
Abstract
Nonsymmorphic symmetries, which involve fractional lattice translations in crystalline materials, can generate exotic types of fermionic excitations that are robust against spin-orbit coupling. Here we report on a hourglass-type dispersion in the bulk of three-dimensional rhenium dioxide crystals, as dictated by its nonsymmorphic symmetries. Due to time reversal and inversion symmetries, each band has an additional two-fold degeneracy, making the neck crossing-point of the hourglass four-fold degenerate. Remarkably, close to the Fermi level, the neck crossing-point traces out a Dirac chain--a chain of connected four-fold-degenerate Dirac loops--in the momentum space. The symmetry protection, the transformation under symmetry-breaking, and the associated topological surface states of the hourglass Dirac chain are discussed.
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Shan-Shan Wang, Ying Liu, Zhi-Ming Yu, Xian-Lei Sheng, Shengyuan A. Yang. 2017-05-03. Hourglass Dirac Chain Metal in Rhenium Dioxide. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-01986-3
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