Observation of the chiral-anomaly-induced negative magnetoresistance: In 3D Weyl semimetal TaAs

Abstract

Weyl semimetal is the three-dimensional analog of graphene. According to quantum field theory, the appearance of Weyl points near the Fermi level will cause novel transport phenomena related to chiral anomaly. In the present paper, we report the experimental evidence for the long-anticipated negative magnetoresistance generated by the chiral anomaly in a newly predicted time-reversal-invariant Weyl semimetal material TaAs. Clear Shubnikov de Haas (SdH) oscillations have been detected starting from a very weak magnetic field. Analysis of the SdH peaks gives the Berry phase accumulated along the cyclotron orbits as π, indicating the existence of Weyl points.