Theory of the anomalous Hall effect in the transition metal pentatellurides ZrTe5 and HfTe5

Abstract

The anomalous Hall effect has considerable impact on the progress of condensed matter physics and occurs in systems with time-reversal symmetry breaking. Here we theoretically investigate the anomalous Hall effect in the nonmagnetic transition metal pentatellurides ZrTe5 and HfTe5. In the presence of Zeeman splitting and Dirac mass, there is an intrinsic anomalous Hall conductivity induced by the Berry curvature in the semiclassical treatment. In a finite magnetic field, the anomalous Hall conductivity rapidly decays to zero for constant spin splitting and vanishes for the magnetic-field-dependent Zeeman energy. A semiclassical formula is derived to depict the magnetic field dependence of the Hall conductivity, which is beneficial for experimental data analysis. Lastly, when the chemical potential is fixed in the magnetic field, a Hall conductivity plateau arises, which may account for the observed anomalous Hall effect in experiments.