arXiv subjects

Maria A. H. Vozmediano

Publications and source records attributed to Maria A. H. Vozmediano.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2020

Detect Axial Gauge Fields with a Calorimeter

Torsional strain in Weyl semimetals excites a unidirectional chiral density wave propagating in the direction of the torsional vector. This gapless excitation, named the chiral sound wave, is generated by a particular realization of the axial anomaly via the triple-axial (AAA) anomalous diagram. We show that the presence of the torsion-generated chiral sound leads to a linear behavior of the specific heat of a Weyl semimetal and to an enhancement of the thermal conductivty at experimentally accessible temperatures. We also demonstrate that such an elastic twist lowers the temperature of the sample, thus generating a new, anomalous type of elasto-calorific effect. Measurements of these thermodynamical effects will provide experimental verification of the exotic triple-axial anomaly as well as the reality of the elastic pseudomagnetic fields in Weyl semimetals.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Elastic Gauge Fields in Weyl Semimetals

We show that, as it happens in graphene, elastic deformations couple to the electronic degrees of freedom as pseudo gauge fields in Weyl semimetals. We derive the form of the elastic gauge fields in a tight-binding model hosting Weyl nodes and see that this vector electron-phonon coupling is chiral, providing an example of axial gauge fields in three dimensions. As an example of the new response functions that arise associated to these elastic gauge fields, we derive a non-zero phonon Hall viscosity for the neutral system at zero temperature. The axial nature of the fields provides a test of the chiral anomaly in high energy with three axial vector couplings.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

A condensed matter realization of the axial magnetic effect

The axial magnetic effect, i.e., the generation of an energy current parallel to an axial magnetic field coupling with opposite signs to left- and right-handed fermions is a non-dissipative transport phenomenon intimately related to the gravitational contribution to the axial anomaly. An axial magnetic field emerges naturally in condensed matter in the so called Weyl semi-metals. We present a measurable implementation of the axial magnetic effect. We show that the edge states of a Weyl semimetal at finite temperature possess a temperature dependent angular momentum in the direction of the vector potential intrinsic to the system. Such a realization provides a plausible context for the experimental confirmation of the elusive gravitational anomaly.

hep-th↗

arXiv2012

Charge instabilities and topological phases in the extended Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice with enlarged unit cell

We study spontaneous symmetry breaking in a system of spinless fermions in the Honeycomb lattice paying special emphasis to the role of an enlarged unit cell on time reversal symmetry broken phases. We use a tight binding model with nearest neighbor hopping t and Hubbard interaction V1 and V2 and extract the phase diagram as a function of electron density and interaction within a mean field variational approach. The analysis completes the previous work done in Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 106402 (2011) where phases with non--trivial topological properties were found with only a nearest neighbor interaction V1 in the absence of charge decouplings. We see that the topological phases are suppressed by the presence of metallic charge density fluctuations. The addition of next to nearest neighbor interaction V2 restores the topological non-trivial phases.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2012

Space dependent Fermi velocity in strained graphene

We resolve some apparent discrepancies between two different models for curved graphene: the one based on tight binding and elasticity theory, and the covariant approach based on quantum field theory in curved space. We demonstrate that strained or corrugated samples will have a space dependent Fermi velocity in either approach that can affect the interpretation of some experiments.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2011

Geometrical and topological aspects of graphene and related materials

Graphene, a two-dimensional crystal made of carbon atoms, provides a new and unexpected bridge between low and high-energy physics. The field has evolved very fast and very good reviews are already available in the literature. Graphene constitutes a condensed matter realization of lower dimensional quantum field theory models that were proposed to confront important -- still unresolved -- puzzles of the area: Chiral symmetry breaking and quark confinement. The new materials named topological insulators, closely related to graphene, are physical realizations of topological field theory. This article reviews some of these topics with the aim of bridging the gap and making these condensed matter issues accessible to high energy readers. The electronic interactions in the monolayer are analyzed with special emphasis on the recent experimental confirmation of some theoretical predictions. The issue of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in the model materials is also reviewed. Finally we give an extensive description of some recent topological aspects of graphene that allow to understand the main aspects of topological insulators.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2011

Effect of Coulomb interactions on the physical observables of graphene

We give an update of the situation concerning the effect of electron-electron interactions on the physics of a neutral graphene system at low energies. We revise old renormalization group results and the use of 1/N expansion to address questions of the possible opening of a low-energy gap, and the magnitude of the graphene fine structure constant. We emphasize the role of Fermi velocity as the only free parameter determining the transport and electronic properties of the graphene system and revise its renormalization by Coulomb interactions in the light of recent experimental evidence.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2011

Spectral and optical properties of doped graphene with charged impurities in the self-consistent Born approximation

Spectral and transport properties of doped (or gated) graphene with long range charged impurities are discussed within the self-consistent Born approximation. It is shown how, for impurity concentrations $n_{imp}\gtrsim n$ a finite DOS appears at the Dirac point, the one-particle lifetime no longer scales linearly with the Fermi momentum, and the lineshapes in the spectral function become non-lorentzian. These behaviors are different from the results calculated within the Born approximation. We also calculate the optical conductivity from the Kubo formula by using the self-consistently calculated spectral function in the presence of charged impurities.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2010

Topological insulating phases in mono and bilayer graphene

We analyze the influence of different quadratic interactions giving rise to time reversal invariant topological insulating phases in mono and bilayer graphene. We make use of the effective action formalism to determine the dependence of the Chern Simons coefficient on the different interactions.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2010

Renormalization group aspects of graphene

Graphene is a two dimensional crystal of carbon atoms with fascinating electronic and morphological properties. The low energy excitations of the neutral, clean system are described by a massless Dirac Hamiltonian in (2+1) dimensions which also captures the main electronic and transport properties. A renormalization group analysis sheds light on the success of the free model: due to the special form of the Fermi surface which reduces to two single points in momentum space, short range interactions are irrelevant and only gauge interactions like long range Coulomb or effective disorder can play a role in the low energy physics. We review these features and discuss briefly other aspects related to disorder and to the bilayer material along the same lines.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2010

Renormalization of Coulomb interaction in graphene: computing observable quantities

We address the computation of physical observables in graphene in the presence of Coulomb interactions of density-density type modeled with a static Coulomb potential within a quantum field theory perturbative renormalization scheme. We show that all the divergences encountered in the physical quantities are associated to the one loop electron self-energy and can be determined without ambiguities by a proper renormalization of the Fermi velocity. The renormalization of the photon polarization to second order in perturbation theory - a quantity directly related to the optical conductivity - is given as an example.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2009

Effect of Coulomb interactions on the optical properties of doped graphene

Recent optical conductivity experiments of doped graphene in the infrared regime reveal a strong background in the energy region between the intra and interband transitions difficult to explain within conventional pictures. We propose a phenomenological model taking into account the marginal Fermi liquid nature of the quasiparticles in graphene near the neutrality point that can explain qualitatively the observed features. We also study the electronic Raman signal and suggest that it will also be anomalous.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2008

Gauge fields and curvature in graphene

The low energy excitations of graphene can be described by a massless Dirac equation in two spacial dimensions. Curved graphene is proposed to be described by coupling the Dirac equation to the corresponding curved space. This covariant formalism gives rise to an effective hamiltonian with various extra terms. Some of them can be put in direct correspondence with more standard tight binding or elasticity models while others are more difficult to grasp in standard condensed matter approaches. We discuss this issue, propose models for singular and regular curvature and describe the physical consequences of the various proposals.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2007

Electronic properties of curved graphene sheets

A model is proposed to study the electronic structure of slightly curved graphene sheets with an arbitrary number of pentagon-heptagon pairs and Stone-Wales defects based on a cosmological analogy. The disorder induced by curvature produces characteristic patterns in the local density of states that can be observed in scanning tunnel and transmission electron microscopy.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2005

Interactions and disorder in 2D graphite sheets

The present work discusses theoretical models which address the effects of electron--electron interactions and disorder in graphene planes. The starting point for the study is a simple tight-binding model for the electronic structure followed by discussion of the interesting features induced by the unscreened Coulomb interaction. The unusual features of the model are emphasized. It is shown that the standard perturbative treatments used in condensed matter theory fail, and a more refined renormalization group approach is required. Then, a theoretical framework which allows us to extend the model to many types of disorder, following an early approach dessigned to treat the fivefold rings of the fullerenes, is discussed. The combined effects of disorder and interactions gives rise to a phase diagram with new strongly interacting phases.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2004

Anisotropic transport in the overdoped High-Tc superconductors within the Van Hove scenario

Recent Raman experiments [F. Venturini et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 89}, 107003-1,(2002)] done in $Bi_2 Sr_2 Ca Cu_2 O_4$ have found that antinodal quasiparticles become insulating when the doping is varied from overdoped to optimally doped while nodal quasiparticles remain metallic. We propose a simple explanation based on the incoherence of the spectral function in the antinodal direction due to the strong scattering suffered by the quasiparticles in the proximity of the Van Hove singularity.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2003

Superconductivity in electron-doped cuprates: Gap shape change and symmetry crossover with doping

The Kohn-Luttinger mechanism for superconductivity is investigated in a model for the electron doped cuprates. The symmetry of the order parameter of the superconducting phase is determined as a function of the geometry of the Fermi surface together with the structure of the electron-hole susceptibility. It is found to remain d_{x^2-y^2} wave within a large doping range. The shape of the gap anisotropy evolves with doping, with the maximum gap moving away from (pi ,0), in good agreement with recent experiments. As the shift of the maximum increases, a crossover to d_{xy}-symmetry is found.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2001

Confinement of electrons in layered metals

We analyze the out of plane hopping in models of layered systems where the in--plane properties deviate from Landau's theory of a Fermi liquid. We show that the hopping term acquires a non trivial energy dependence, due to the coupling to in plane excitations, and can be either relevant or irrelevant at low energies or temperatures. The latter is always the case if the Fermi level lies close to a saddle point in the dispersion relation.

cond-mat.str-el↗