Chirality flip of Weyl nodes and its manifestation in strained MoTe_{2}

Abstract

Due to their topological charge, or chirality, the Weyl cones present in topological semimetals are considered robust against arbitrary perturbations. One well-understood exception to this robustness is the pairwise creation or annihilation of Weyl cones, which involves the overlap in energy and momentum of two oppositely charged nodes. Here we show that the topological charge can in fact change sign, in a process that involves the merging of not two, but three Weyl nodes. This is facilitated by the presence of rotation and time-reversal symmetries, which constrain the relative positions of Weyl cones in momentum space. We analyze the chirality flip process, showing that transport properties distinguish it from the conventional, double Weyl merging. Moreover, we predict that the chirality flip occurs in MoTe_{2}, where experimentally accessible strain leads to the merging of three Weyl cones close to the Fermi level. Our work sets the stage to further investigate and observe such chirality flipping processes in different topological materials.