Nodal vacancy bound states and resonances in three-dimensional Weyl semimetals

Abstract

The electronic structure of a cubic $\mathcal{T}$-symmetric Weyl semimetal is analysed in the presence of atomic-sized vacancy defects. Isolated vacancies are shown to generate nodal bound states with $r^{{\scriptscriptstyle -2}}$ asymptotic tails, even when immersed in a weakly disordered environment. These states show up as a significantly enhanced nodal density of states which, as the concentration of defects is increased, reshapes into a nodal peak that is broadened by inter-vacancy hybridisation into a comb of satellite resonances at finite energies. Our results establish point defects as a crucial source of elastic scattering that leads to nontrivial modifications in the electronic structure of Weyl semimetals.