2015/04/06 by G. A. Kapilevich, Gary A. Kapilevich, Peter S. Riseborough +6
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Condensed matter physics #Coupling (piping) #Electron #Exciton #Fermi surface #Kondo effect #Kondo insulator #Materials science #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Rare-earth and actinide compounds #Spin (aerodynamics) #Topological Materials and Phenomena #Topological insulator #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.92.085133
7 pages, 5 figures
arxiv created 2015/04/06 · openalex publication_date 2015/08/20 · arxiv updated 2015/09/02 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The compound SmB6 is a Kondo insulator, where the lowest-energy bulk electronic excitations are spin-excitons. It also has surface states that are subjected to strong spin-orbit coupling. It has been suggested that SmB6 is also a topological insulator. Here we show that, despite the absence of time-reversal symmetry breaking and the presence of strong spin-orbit coupling, the chiral spin texture of the Weyl cone is not completely protected. In particular, we show that the spin-exciton-mediated scattering produces features in the surface electronic spectrum at energies separated from the surface Fermi energy by the spin-exciton energy. Despite the features being far removed from the surface Fermi energy, they are extremely temperature dependent. The temperature variation occurs over a characteristic scale determined by the dispersion of the spin-exciton. The structures may be observed by electron spectroscopy at low temperatures.