Disentangling contributions to longitudinal magnetoconductivity for Kramers-Weyl nodes

Abstract

We set out to compute the longitudinal magnetoconductivity for an isolated and isotropic Kramers-Weyl node (KWN), existing in chiral crystals, which forms an exotic cousin of the conventional Weyl nodes resulting from band-inversions. The peculiarities of KWNs are many, the principal one being the presence of two concentric Fermi surfaces at any positive chemical potential ($μ$) with respect to the nodal point. This is caused by a dominant quadratic-in-momentum dispersion, with the linear-in-momentum Dirac- or Weyl-like terms relegated to a secondary status. In a KWN, the chirally-conjugate node typically serves as a mere doppelgänger, being significantly separated in energy. Hence, when $μ$ is set near such a node, the signatures of a lone node are probed in the transport-measurements. The intrinsic topological quantities in the forms of Berry curvature and orbital magnetic moment contribute to the linear response, which we determine by exactly solving the semiclassical Bolzmann equations. Another crucial feature is that the two bands at the same KWN node carry actual spin-quantum numbers, thus providing an additional coupling to an external magnetic field ($\boldsymbol B$), and affecting the conductivity. We take this into account as well, and demonstrate that it causes a linear-in-$B$ dependence, on top of the usual $B^2$-dependence.