Interacting Weyl semimetals: characterization via the topological Hamiltonian and its breakdown

Abstract

Weyl semimetals (WSMs) constitute a 3D phase with linearly-dispersing Weyl excitations at low energy, which lead to unusual electrodynamic responses and open Fermi arcs on boundaries. We derive a simple criterion to identify and characterize WSMs in an interacting setting using the exact electronic Green's function at zero frequency, which defines a topological Bloch Hamiltonian. We apply this criterion by numerically analyzing, via cluster and other methods, interacting lattice models with and without time-reversal symmetry. We identify various mechanisms for how interactions move and renormalize Weyl fermions. Our methods remain valid in the presence of long-ranged Coulomb repulsion. Finally, we introduce a WSM-like phase for which our criterion breaks down due to fractionalization: the charge-carrying Weyl quasiparticles are orthogonal to the electron.