Broken-symmetry phases of interacting nested Weyl and Dirac loops

Abstract

We study interaction-induced broken symmetry phases that can arise in metallic or semimetallic band structures with two nested Weyl or Dirac loops. The ordered phases can be of the charge or (pseudo)spin density wave type, or superconductivity from interloop pairing. A general analysis for two types of Weyl loops is given, according to whether a local reflection symmetry in momentum space exists or not, for Hamiltonians having a global PT symmetry. The resulting density wave phases always have lower total energy, and can be metallic, insulating, or semimetallic (with nodal loops), depending on both the reflection symmetry of the loops and the symmetry transformation that maps one loop onto the other. We extend this study to nested Z2 nodal lines, for which the ordered phases include also nodal point and nodal chain semimetals, and to spinful Dirac nodal lines. Superconductivity from interloop pairing can be fully gapped only if the initial double-loop system is semimetallic.