2017/10/31 by C. Y. Guo, F. Wu, Z. Z. Wu +8 · 83 citations
Chemistry · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Physical and Chemical Molecular Interactions #Berry connection and curvature #Degenerate energy levels #Electron #Electronic band structure #Fermion #Rare-earth and actinide compounds #Semimetal #Topological Materials and Phenomena #Topology (electrical circuits) #Weyl semimetal #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s41467-018-06782-1
published in Nature Communications 9(1), 4622 (Nature Portfolio) · 19 pages, 5 figures, Supplementary Information available with open access at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06782-1
openalex publication_date 2018/10/30 · arxiv created 2018/11/06 · arxiv updated 2018/11/07 · openalex created_date 2018/11/09 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
The manifestation of Weyl fermions in strongly correlated electron systems is of particular interest. We report evidence for Weyl fermions in the heavy fermion semimetal YbPtBi from electronic structure calculations, angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, magnetotransport and calorimetric measurements. At elevated temperatures where 4f-electrons are localized, there are triply degenerate points, yielding Weyl nodes in applied magnetic fields. These are revealed by a contribution from the chiral anomaly in the magnetotransport, which at low temperatures becomes negligible due to the influence of electronic correlations. Instead, Weyl fermions are inferred from the topological Hall effect, which provides evidence for a Berry curvature, and a cubic temperature dependence of the specific heat, as expected from the linear dispersion near the Weyl nodes. The results suggest that YbPtBi is a Weyl heavy fermion semimetal, where the Kondo interaction renormalizes the bands hosting Weyl points. These findings open up an opportunity to explore the interplay between topology and strong electronic correlations.