Chiral pumping effect induced by rotating electric fields

Abstract

We propose an experimental setup using 3D Dirac semimetals to access a novel phenomenon induced by the chiral anomaly. We show that the combination of a magnetic field and a circularly polarized laser induces a finite charge density with an accompanying axial current. This is because the circularly polarized laser breaks time-reversal symmetry and the Dirac point splits into two Weyl points, which results in an axial-vector field. We elucidate the appearance of the axial-vector field with the help of the Floquet theory by deriving an effective Hamiltonian for high-frequency electric fields. This anomalous charge density, i.e. the chiral pumping effect, is a phenomenon reminiscent of the chiral magnetic effect with a chiral chemical potential. We explicitly compute the pumped density and the axial-current expectation value. We also take account of coupling to the chiral magnetic effect to calculate a balanced distribution of charge and chirality in a material that behaves as a chiral battery.