Strain-induced topological charge control in multifold fermion systems

Abstract

Multifold fermion systems feature free fermionic excitations, which have no counterparts in high-energy physics, and exhibit several unconventional properties. Using first-principles calculations, we predict that strain engineering can be used to control the distribution of topological charges in transition metal silicide candidate CoSi, hosting multifold fermions. We demonstrate that breaking the rotational symmetry of the system, by choosing a suitable strain, destroys the multifold fermions, and at the same time results in the creation of Weyl points. We introduce a low energy effective model to complement the results obtained from density functional calculations. Our findings suggest that strain-engineering is a useful approach to tune topological properties of multifold fermions.