Momentum relaxation in a holographic Weyl semimetal

Abstract

We study the effects of momentum relaxation on the holographic Weyl semimetal which exhibits a topological quantum phase transition between the Weyl semimetal phase and a topological trivial phase. The conservation of momentum in the field theory is broken by the axion fields in holography. The topological Weyl semimetal phase is characterized by a nontrivial anomalous Hall conductivity. We find that the critical value of the phase transition decreases when we increase the momentum relaxation strength up to a special value, above which it goes to zero. This indicates that the Weyl semimetal phase shrinks and finally disappears as the momentum relaxation strength is increased, which is consistent with the weakly coupled field theory predictions. We also study the behavior of transverse and longitudinal conductivities and low-temperature dependence of the dc resistivities with respect to momentum relaxation strength.