Triangle anomaly in Weyl semimetals

Abstract

Weyl semimetals possess massless chiral quasiparticles, and they are thus affected by the triangle anomalies. We discuss the features of the chiral magnetic and chiral vortical effects specific to Weyl semimetals, and then propose three phenomena caused by the triangle anomalies in this material: (i) anomaly cooling; (ii) charge transport by soliton waves as described by Burgers' equation, and (iii) the shift of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless phase transition of superfluid vortices coupled to Weyl fermions. In addition, we establish the conditions under which the chiral magnetic current exists in real materials.