Role of electron correlations in some Weyl systems

Abstract

We are discussing a model to understand previously obtained results on Weyl semimetals as realized in MoTe2 using DFT and DFT+U calculations. The model is motivated from general principles and we use it to investigate the effects of Coulomb correlations originating from the localized nature of the Mo-d orbitals. We find that such correlations can eliminate or create pairs of Weyl points as the strength of the Coulomb interaction is varied. The effect of the spin-orbit coupling (SOC) is to split each Weyl point, which is assumed present in the absence of SOC, into pairs of spin-chiral partners.