Emergent Weyl excitations in systems of polar particles

Sergey V. Syzranov; Michael L. Wall; Bihui Zhu; Victor Gurarie; Ana Maria Rey

doi:10.1038/ncomms13543

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arXiv · 1512.08723

Emergent Weyl excitations in systems of polar particles

Sergey V. Syzranov·Michael L. Wall·Bihui Zhu·Victor Gurarie·Ana Maria Rey

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Abstract

Weyl fermions are massless chiral particles first predicted in 1929 and once thought to describe neutrinos. Although never observed as elementary particles, quasiparticles with Weyl dispersion have recently been experimentally discovered in solid-state systems causing a furore in the research community. Systems with Weyl excitations can display a plethora of fascinating phenomena and offer great potential for improved quantum technologies. Here we show that Weyl excitations generically exist in three-dimensional systems of dipolar particles with weakly broken time-reversal symmetry (for example, by a magnetic field). They emerge as a result of dipolar-interaction-induced transfer of angular momentum between the $J=0$ and $J=1$ internal particle levels. We also discuss momentum-resolved Ramsey spectroscopy methods for observing Weyl quasiparticles in cold alkaline-earth-atom systems. Our results provide a pathway for a feasible experimental realisation of Weyl quasiparticles and related phenomena in clean and controllable atomic systems.

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Sergey V. Syzranov, Michael L. Wall, Bihui Zhu, Victor Gurarie, Ana Maria Rey. 2016-10-22. Emergent Weyl excitations in systems of polar particles. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13543

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