Topological nodal line semimetals in holography

Abstract

We show a holographic model of a strongly coupled topological nodal line semimetal (NLSM) and find that the NLSM phase could go through a quantum phase transition to a topologically trivial state. The dual fermion spectral function shows that there are multiple Fermi surfaces each of which is a closed nodal loop in the NLSM phase. The topological structure in the bulk is induced by the IR interplay between the dual mass operator and the operator that deforms the topology of the Fermi surface. We propose a practical framework for building various strongly coupled topological semimetals in holography, which indicates that at strong coupling topologically nontrivial semimetal states generally exist.