Surface plasmon polaritons in topological Weyl semimetals

Abstract

We consider theoretically surface plasmon polaritons in Weyl semimetals. These materials contain pairs of band touching points---Weyl nodes---with a chiral topological charge, which induces an optical anisotropy and anomalous transport through the chiral anomaly. We show that these effects, which are not present in ordinary metals, have a direct fundamental manifestation in the surface plasmon dispersion. The retarded Weyl surface plasmon dispersion depends on the separation of the Weyl nodes in energy and momentum space. For Weyl semimetals with broken time-reversal symmetry, the distance between the nodes acts as an effective applied magnetic field in momentum space, and the Weyl surface plasmon polariton dispersion is strikingly similar to magnetoplasmons in ordinary metals. In particular, this implies the existence of nonreciprocal surface modes. In addition, we obtain the nonretarded Weyl magnetoplasmon modes, which acquire an additional longitudinal magnetic field dependence. These predicted surface plasmon results are observable manifestations of the chiral anomaly in Weyl semimetals and might have technological applications.