Topological Classification and Stability of Fermi Surfaces

In the framework of the Cartan classification of Hamiltonians, a kind of topological classification of Fermi surfaces is established in terms of topological charges. The topological charge of a Fermi surface depends on its codimension and the class to which its Hamiltonian belongs. It is revealed that six types of topological charges exist, and they form two groups with respect to the chiral symmetry, with each group consisting of one original charge and two descendants. It is these nontrivial topological charges which lead to the robust topological protection of the corresponding Fermi surfaces against perturbations that preserve discrete symmetries.Comment: 5 pages, published version in PR

Ferromagnetic Type-II Weyl Semimetal in Pyrite Chromium Dioxide

Magnetic topological materials have recently drawn significant importance and interest, due to their topologically nontrivial electronic structure within spontaneous magnetic moments and band inversion. Based on first-principles calculations, we propose that chromium dioxide, in its ferromagnetic pyrite structure, can realize one pair of type-II Weyl points between the $N$th and $(N+1)$th bands, where $N$ is the total number of valence electrons per unit cell. Other Weyl points between the $(N-1)$th and $N$th bands also appear close to the Fermi level due to the complex topological electronic band structure. The symmetry analysis elucidates that the Weyl points arise from a triply-degenerate point splitting due to the mirror reflection symmetry broken in the presence of spin-orbital coupling, which is equivalent to an applied magnetic field along the direction of magnetization. The Weyl points located on the magnetic axis are protected by the three-fold rotational symmetry. The corresponding Fermi arcs projected on both (001) and (110) surfaces are calculated as well and observed clearly. This finding opens a wide range of possible experimental realizations of type-II Weyl fermions in a system with time-reversal breaking.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Energy-Dependent GRB Pulse Width due to the Curvature Effect and Intrinsic Band Spectrum

Previous studies have found that the width of gamma-ray burst (GRB) pulse is energy dependent and that it decreases as a power-law function with increasing photon energy. In this work we have investigated the relation between the energy dependence of pulse and the so-called Band spectrum by using a sample including 51 well-separated fast rise and exponential decay long-duration GRB pulses observed by BATSE (Burst and Transient Source Experiment on the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory). We first decompose these pulses into rise, and decay phases and find the rise widths, and the decay widths also behavior as a power-law function with photon energy. Then we investigate statistically the relations between the three power-law indices of the rise, decay and total width of pulse (denoted as $\delta_r$, $\delta_d$ and $\delta_w$, respectively) and the three Band spectral parameters, high-energy index ($\alpha$), low-energy index ($\beta$) and peak energy ($E_p$). It is found that (1)$\alpha$ is strongly correlated with $\delta_w$ and $\delta_d$ but seems uncorrelated with $\delta_r$; (2)$\beta$ is weakly correlated with the three power-law indices and (3)$E_p$ does not show evident correlations with the three power-law indices. We further investigate the origin of $\delta_d-\alpha$ and $\delta_w-\alpha$. We show that the curvature effect and the intrinsic Band spectrum could naturally lead to the energy dependence of GRB pulse width and also the $\delta_d-\alpha$ and $\delta_w-\alpha$ correlations. Our results would hold so long as the shell emitting gamma rays has a curve surface and the intrinsic spectrum is a Band spectrum or broken power law. The strong $\delta_d-\alpha$ correlation and inapparent correlations between $\delta_r$ and three Band spectral parameters also suggest that the rise and decay phases of GRB pulses have different origins.Comment: 29 pages, 9 figures, 4 tables. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Topological Weyl and Node-Line Semimetals in Ferromagnetic Vanadium-Phosphorous-Oxide β\beta-V2_2OPO4_4 Compound

We propose that the topological semimetal features can co-exist with ferromagnetic ground state in vanadium-phosphorous-oxide $\beta$-V$_2$OPO$_4$ compound from first-principles calculations. In this magnetic system with inversion symmetry, the direction of magnetization is able to manipulate the symmetric protected band structures from a node-line type to a Weyl one in the presence of spin-orbital-coupling. The node-line semimetal phase is protected by the mirror symmetry with the reflection-invariant plane perpendicular to magnetic order. Within mirror symmetry breaking due to the magnetization along other directions, the gapless node-line loop will degenerate to only one pair of Weyl points protected by the rotational symmetry along the magnetic axis, which are largely separated in momentum space. Such Weyl semimetal phase provides a nice candidate with the minimum number of Weyl points in a condensed matter system. The results of surface band calculations confirm the non-trivial topology of this proposed compound. This findings provide a realistic candidate for the investigation of topological semimetals with time-reversal symmetry breaking, particularly towards the realization of quantum anomalous Hall effect in Weyl semimetals.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

General response theory of topologically stable Fermi points and its implications for disordered cases

We develop a general response theory of gapless Fermi points with nontrivial topological charges for gauge and nonlinear sigma fields, which asserts that the topological character of the Fermi points is embodied as the terms with discrete coefficients proportional to the corresponding topological charges. Applying the theory to the effective non-linear sigma models for topological Fermi points with disorders in the framework of replica approach, we derive rigorously the Wess-Zumino terms with the topological charges being their levels in the two complex symmetry classes of A and AIII. Intriguingly, two nontrivial examples of quadratic Fermi points with the topological charge `2' are respectively illustrated for the classes A and AIII. We also address a qualitative connection of topological charges of Fermi points in the real symmetry classes to the topological terms in the non-linear sigma models, based on the one-to-one classification correspondence.Comment: 8 pages and 2 figures, revised version with appendi