Scars in Dirac fermion systems: the influence of an Aharonov–Bohm flux

Abstract

Time-reversal ( ${ \mathcal T }$ -) symmetry is fundamental to many physical processes. Typically, ${ \mathcal T }$ -breaking for microscopic processes requires the presence of magnetic field. However, for 2D massless Dirac billiards, ${ \mathcal T }$ -symmetry is broken automatically by the mass confinement, leading to chiral quantum scars. In this paper, we investigate the mechanism of ${ \mathcal T }$ -breaking by analyzing the local current of the scarring eigenstates and their magnetic response to an Aharonov–Bohm flux. Our results unveil the complete understanding of the subtle ${ \mathcal T }$ -breaking phenomena from both the semiclassical formula of chiral scars and the microscopic current and spin reflection at the boundaries, leading to a controlling scheme to change the chirality of the relativistic quantum scars. Our findings not only have significant implications on the transport behavior and spin textures of the relativistic pseudoparticles, but also add basic knowledge to relativistic quantum chaos.

Keywords

• relativistic quantum chaos
• time-reversal symmetry breaking
• chiral scar
• semiclassical theory
• Aharonov–Bohm phase
• 05.45.Mt