Chiral symmetry breaking through spontaneous dimerization in kagomé metals

Riccardo Ciola, Kitinan Pongsangangan, Ronny Thomale, and Lars Fritz
Phys. Rev. B 104, 245138 – Published 27 December 2021

Abstract

Due to an increase in the variety of candidate compounds, kagomé metals have recently gained significant attention. Among other features, kagomé metals host Dirac cones as a key band structure feature away from half filling, and potentially yield an exceptionally large fine structure, beyond values found in other 2D Dirac materials such as graphene. We investigate the possibility of chiral symmetry breaking in kagomé metals. Based on a heuristic lattice model, we determine the critical coupling strength and the ordering pattern by means of a Schwinger-Dyson mean-field analysis. As the leading instability we identify a dimerization pattern which spontaneously opens an excitation gap at the Dirac point and breaks the chiral symmetry.

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  • Received 9 August 2021
  • Revised 14 December 2021
  • Accepted 14 December 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.104.245138

©2021 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Riccardo Ciola1,*, Kitinan Pongsangangan1,*, Ronny Thomale2, and Lars Fritz1

  • 1Institute for Theoretical Physics and Center for Extreme Matter and Emergent Phenomena, Utrecht University, Princetonplein 5, 3584 CC Utrecht, The Netherlands
  • 2Institut für Theoretische Physik und Astrophysik, Universität Würzburg, 97074 Würzburg, Germany

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.

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Vol. 104, Iss. 24 — 15 December 2021

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