Department of Physics, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
Division of Physics and Applied Physics, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, 21 Nanyang Link, 637371, Singapore, Singapore.
Nat Commun. 2023 Apr 19;14(1):2228. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-37931-w.
The spacetime light cone is central to the definition of causality in the theory of relativity. Recently, links between relativistic and condensed matter physics have been uncovered, where relativistic particles can emerge as quasiparticles in the energy-momentum space of matter. Here, we unveil an energy-momentum analogue of the spacetime light cone by mapping time to energy, space to momentum, and the light cone to the Weyl cone. We show that two Weyl quasiparticles can only interact to open a global energy gap if they lie in each other's energy-momentum dispersion cones-analogous to two events that can only have a causal connection if they lie in each other's light cones. Moreover, we demonstrate that the causality of surface chiral modes in quantum matter is entangled with the causality of bulk Weyl fermions. Furthermore, we identify a unique quantum horizon region and an associated 'thick horizon' in the emergent causal structure.
时一空光锥是相对论中因果关系定义的核心。最近,相对论和凝聚态物理之间的联系已经被揭示出来,在相对论粒子可以在物质的能量-动量空间中出现准粒子。在这里,我们通过将时间映射到能量、空间映射到动量,以及将光锥映射到魏尔(Weyl)锥,揭示了一个能量-动量类比的时一空光锥。我们表明,只有当两个魏尔准粒子位于彼此的能量-动量色散锥内时,它们才能相互作用打开全局能量间隙——类似于两个事件只有在它们位于彼此的光锥内时才能有因果关系。此外,我们证明了量子物质中表面手征模式的因果关系与体魏尔费米子的因果关系纠缠在一起。此外,我们在新兴的因果结构中识别了一个独特的量子视界区域和一个相关的“厚视界”。