Kerr effect as evidence of gyrotropic order in the cuprates

The Kerr effect can arise in a time-reversal invariant dissipative medium that is "gyrotropic", i.e. one that breaks inversion ($\mathcal I$) and all mirror symmetries. Examples of such systems include electron analogs of cholesteric liquid crystals, and their descendants, such as systems with chiral charge ordering. We present arguments that the striking Kerr onset seen in the pseudogap phase of a large number of cuprate high temperature superconductors is evidence of chiral charge ordering. We discuss additional experimental consequences of a phase transition to a gyrotropic state, including the appearance of a zero field Nernst effect.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur

Three dimensional Lifshitz black hole and the Korteweg-de Vries equation

We consider a solution of three dimensional New Massive Gravity with a negative cosmological constant and use the AdS/CTF correspondence to inquire about the equivalent two dimensional model at the boundary. We conclude that there should be a close relation with the Korteweg-de Vries equation.Comment: 4 page

Friedel oscillations due to Fermi arcs in Weyl semimetals

Weyl semimetals harbor unusual surface states known as Fermi arcs, which are essentially disjoint segments of a two dimensional Fermi surface. We describe a prescription for obtaining Fermi arcs of arbitrary shape and connectivity by stacking alternate two dimensional electron and hole Fermi surfaces and adding suitable interlayer coupling. Using this prescription, we compute the local density of states -- a quantity directly relevant to scanning tunneling microscopy -- on a Weyl semimetal surface in the presence of a point scatterer and present results for a particular model that is expected to apply to pyrochlore iridate Weyl semimetals. For thin samples, Fermi arcs on opposite surfaces conspire to allow nested backscattering, resulting in strong Friedel oscillations on the surface. These oscillations die out as the sample thickness is increased and Fermi arcs from the bottom surface retreat and weak oscillations, due to scattering between the top surface Fermi arcs alone, survive. The surface spectral function -- accessible to photoemission experiments -- is also computed. In the thermodynamic limit, this calculation can be done analytically and separate contributions from the Fermi arcs and the bulk states can be seen.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures; minor changes in figures and text, typos correcte

Charge Transport in Weyl Semimetals

We study transport in three dimensional Weyl semimetals with N isotropic Weyl nodes in the presence of Coulomb interactions or disorder at temperature T. In the interacting clean limit, we determine the conductivity by solving a quantum Boltzmann equation within a `leading log' approximation and find it to be proportional to T, upto logarithmic factors arising from the flow of couplings. In the noninteracting disordered case, we compute the finite-frequency Kubo conductivity and show that it exhibits distinct behaviors for omega << T and omega >> T: in the former regime we recover the results of a previous analysis, of a finite conductivity and a Drude width that vanishes as NT^2; in the latter, we find a conductivity that vanishes linearly with omega whose leading contribution as T -> 0 is the same as that of the clean, non-interacting system sigma(omega, T=0) = N(e^2/12h)(|omega|/v_F). We compare our results to experimental data on Y2Ir2O7 and also comment on the possible relevance to recent transport data on Eu2Ir2O7.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures in main text; 5 pages, 3 figures in supplementary material. Parts of main text moved to supplementary materia

Updated analysis of π\piN elastic scattering data to 2.1~GeV: The Baryon Spectrum

We present the results of energy-dependent and single-energy partial-wave analyses of $\pi$N elastic scattering data with laboratory kinetic energies below 2.1~GeV. Resonance structures have been extracted using Breit-Wigner fits, speed plots, and a complex plane mapping of the associated poles and zeroes. This is the first set of resonance parameters from a VPI analysis constrained by fixed-t dispersion relations. We have searched our solutions for structures which may have been missed in our previous analyses, finding candidates in the $S_{11}$ and $F_{15}$ partial-wave amplitudes. Our results are compared with those found by the Karlsruhe, Carnegie-Mellon$-$Berkeley, and Kent State groups.Comment: 25 pages of text plus 5 figures. Revtex file and postscript figures available via anonymous FTP at ftp://clsaid.phys.vt.edu/pub/pi

Sensitivity to the pion-nucleon coupling constant in partial-wave analyses of elastic pi-N and NN scattering and pion photoproduction

We summarize results obtained in our studies of the pion-nucleon coupling constant. Several different techniques have been applied to pi-N and NN elastic scattering data, and the existing database for single-pion photoproduction. The most reliable determination comes from pi-N elastic scattering. The sensitivity in this reaction was found to be greater, by at least a factor of 3, when compared with analyses of NN elastic scattering or single-pion photoproduction.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure. Talk given at the Uppsala workshop on the pion-nucleon coupling constan