Abstract
The half-Heusler rare-earth intermetallic GdPtBi has recently gained attention due to peculiar magnetotransport phenomena that have been associated with the possible existence of Weyl fermions, thought to arise from the crossings of spin-split conduction and valence bands. On the other hand, similar magnetotransport phenomena observed in other rare-earth intermetallics have often been attributed to the interaction of itinerant carriers with localized magnetic moments stemming from the $4f$-shell of the rare-earth element. In order to address the origin of the magnetotransport phenomena in GdPtBi, we performed a comprehensive study of the magnetization, electrical and thermal magnetoresistivity on two single-crystalline GdPtBi samples. In addition, we performed an analysis of the Fermi surface via Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations in one of the samples and compared the results to \emph{ab initio} band structure calculations. Our findings indicate that the electrical and thermal magnetotransport in GdPtBi cannot be solely explained by Weyl physics and is strongly influenced by the interaction of both itinerant charge carriers and phonons with localized magnetic Gd-ions and possibly also paramagnetic impurities.
Highlights
Weyl fermions can be realized as low-energy quasiparticles in certain semimetals with topologically protected crossing points of two inverted electronic bands with linear dispersion [1,2,3]
At the quantum level electromagnetic fields can violate the conservation of the particle number at individual nodes due to quantum fluctuations. This phenomenon is known as the chiral anomaly [4,5], physically interpreted as simultaneous production of particles of one chirality and antiparticles of the opposite chirality
The stoichiometry of the samples has been confirmed with energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDXS) analysis on multiple points on all surfaces of the samples, patches of
Summary
Weyl fermions can be realized as low-energy quasiparticles in certain semimetals with topologically protected crossing points of two inverted electronic bands with linear dispersion [1,2,3]. They occur in pairs of independent nodes, separated in momentum space with opposite chirality—a quantum number defining the “handedness” of a quasiparticle’s spin relative to its momentum. In the context of Weyl semimetals, the chiral anomaly is expected to induce a steady out-ofequilibrium flow of quasiparticles between the left- and righthanded nodes, leading to a reduction of electrical and thermal magnetoresistivity [6,7,8,9,10] in magnetic fields H aligned with.
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