TY  - JOUR
PB  - SciPost Foundation
DO  - 10.21468/SciPostPhys.11.2.046
TI  - Chiral anomaly trapped in Weyl metals: Nonequilibrium valley polarization at zero magnetic field
PY  - 2021/08/31
UR  - https://scipost.org/SciPostPhys.11.2.046
JF  - SciPost Physics
JA  - SciPost Phys.
VL  - 11
IS  - 2
SP  - 046
A1  - Perez-Piskunow, Pablo M.
AU  - Bovenzi, Nicandro
AU  - Akhmerov, Anton R.
AU  - Breitkreiz, Maxim
AB  - In Weyl semimetals the application of parallel electric and magnetic fields leads to valley polarization -- an occupation disbalance of valleys of opposite chirality -- a direct consequence of the chiral anomaly. In this work, we present numerical tools to explore such nonequilibrium effects in spatially confined three-dimensional systems with a variable disorder potential, giving exact solutions to leading order in the disorder potential and the applied electric field. Application to a Weyl-metal slab shows that valley polarization also occurs without an external magnetic field as an effect of chiral anomaly "trapping": Spatial confinement produces chiral bulk states, which enable the valley polarization in a similar way as the chiral states induced by a magnetic field. Despite its finite-size origin, the valley polarization can persist up to macroscopic length scales if the disorder potential is sufficiently long ranged, so that direct inter-valley scattering is suppressed and the relaxation then goes via the Fermi-arc surface states.
ER  -

@Article{10.21468/SciPostPhys.11.2.046,
	title={{Chiral anomaly trapped in Weyl metals: Nonequilibrium valley polarization at zero magnetic field}},
	author={Pablo M. Perez-Piskunow and Nicandro Bovenzi and Anton R. Akhmerov and Maxim Breitkreiz},
	journal={SciPost Phys.},
	volume={11},
	pages={046},
	year={2021},
	publisher={SciPost},
	doi={10.21468/SciPostPhys.11.2.046},
	url={https://scipost.org/10.21468/SciPostPhys.11.2.046},
}