Gapped Dirac semimetal with mixed linear and parabolic dispersions

Abstract

In this paper, we make a comprehensive study of the properties of a gapped Dirac semimetal model, which was originally proposed in the magnetoinfrared spectroscopy measurement of ZeTe$_5$, and includes both the linear and parabolic dispersions in all three directions. We find that, depending on the band inversion parameters, $\zeta'$ and $\zeta_z'$, the model can support three different phases: the single Dirac point (DP) phase, the double DPs phase and the Dirac ring phase. The three different phases can be distinguished by their low-energy features in the density of states (DOS) and optical conductivity. At high energy, both the DOS and optical conductivity exhibit power-law like behaviors, with the asymptotic exponents depending heavily on the signs of $\zeta'$ and $\zeta_z'$. Moreover, the thumb-of-rule formula between the DOS and optical conductivity is satisfied only when $(\zeta',\zeta_z')>0$. The implications of our results for experiments are discussed.