Mapping rules from Nodal Line Semimetal to Topological Crystalline Insulator in Face centered Cubic Lattice

Ikuma Tateishi

Published 2020-04-05Version 1

We study what kind of topological crystalline insulator phase emerges from nodal line semimetal phases when spin-orbit coupling is taken into account in the face-centered cubic lattice. We construct an effective model of a nodal line semimetal, and the model is constructed to show a reconnection of nodal lines, which is a phase transition point between two topologically different nodal line semimetal phases. By introducing a spin-orbit coupling term into the model, we obtain topological crystalline insulator phases and study their properties. As a result, we reveal that the obtained phases have a non-trivial mirror Chern number on the mirror plane where nodal lines penetrate when spin-orbit coupling is neglected. We also find that the reconnection of nodal lines corresponds to the phase transition between different topological crystalline insulator phases. This result indicates that turning off spin-orbit coupling and checking nodal lines can distinguish the two topological crystalline insulator phases, which have not been distinguished by previous methods.