How many surface modes does one see on the boundary of a Dirac material?

Abstract

We present full expressions for the surface part of polarization tensor of a Dirac fermion confined in a half-space in $3+1$ dimensions. We compare this tensor to the polarization tensor of eventual surface mode (which is a $2+1$ dimensional Dirac fermion) and find essential differences in the conductivities in both Hall and normal sectors. Thus, the interaction with electromagnetic field near the boundary differs significantly in the full model and in the effective theory for the surface mode.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; slightly improved version, published in Physical Review Letter