ESPCI web site
The traditional LPEM seminar (hybrid format) will be given Thursday April 20 at 2:00 pm (Paris time)
Room Boreau, Building C, 2nd Floor
Quantum oscillations and signatures of electron interactions in the Dirac semimetal ZrTe5
Many-body systems composed from very different microscopic constituents often can be effectively described using the same low energy field theories. This principle is exemplified in the study of semimetals whose low energy band structures make them solid-state realizations of Dirac and Weyl Hamiltonians. This has allowed experimental exploration of exotic phenomena that are not easily accessible in particle physics experiments in tabletop in the solid-state experiment. However, most understanding of the physics of those systems has been inferred from non-interacting theories. In this talk I will present results of experiments done on the prototypical Dirac semimetal ZrTe5 in extreme conditions (sub-kelvin temperatures, pulsed magnetic fields). Those results suggest that although the relativistic nature of the low energy excitations is an essential ingredient of many observed exotic phenomena, the inherently low charge carrier density requires going beyond the simple paradigm of non-interacting quasiparticles. Those results highlights that the study of semi-metals could open a new route for the investigating exotic ’high energy’ phenomena in correlated electron systems.
