Negative Longitudinal Magnetoresistance in the Density Wave Phase of Y2Ir2O7

Abstract

The ground state of nanowires of single-crystalline pyrochlore Y_{2}Ir_{2}O_{7} is a density wave. The application of a transverse magnetic field increases the threshold electric field for the collective depinning of the density wave state at a low temperature, leading to colossal magnetoresistance for voltages around the depinning threshold. This is in striking contrast to the case where even a vanishingly small longitudinal magnetic field sharply reduces the depinning threshold voltage, resulting in negative magnetoresistance. Ruling out several other possibilities, we argue that this phenomenon is likely to be a consequence of the chiral anomaly in the gapped out Weyl semimetal phase in Y_{2}Ir_{2}O_{7}.