Realization of Massive Relativistic Spin-$3/2$ Rarita-Schwinger Quasiparticle in Condensed Matter Systems
POSTER
Abstract
Very recently, there has been significant progress in realizing high-energy particles in condensed matter system (CMS) such as the Dirac, Weyl and Majorana fermions. Besides the spin-1/2 particles, the spin-3/2 elementary particle, known as the Rarita-Schwinger (RS) fermion, has not been observed or simulated in the laboratory. The main obstacle of realizing RS fermion in CMS lies in the nontrivial constraints that eliminate the redundant degrees of freedom in its representation of the Poincar\'{e} group. In this Letter, we propose a generic method that automatically contains the constraints in the Hamiltonian and prove the RS modes always exist and can be separated from the other non-RS bands. Through symmetry considerations, we show that the two dimensional (2D) massive RS (M-RS) quasiparticle can emerge in several trigonal and hexagonal lattices. Based on \emph{ab initio} calculations, we predict that the thin film of CaLiX (X=Ge and Si) may host 2D M-RS excitations near the Fermi level.