Quantum and transport mobilities of a Na3Bi-based three-dimensional Dirac system

The electronic and transport properties of a three-dimensional (3D) Dirac system are investigated theoretically, which is motivated by recent experimental measurements on quantum and transport mobilities in the 3D Dirac semimetal ${\mathrm{Na}}_{3}\mathrm{Bi}$ by J. Xiong et al. [Science 350, 413 (2015); Europhys. Lett. 114, 27002 (2016)]. The electron Hamiltonian is taken from a simplified $\mathbf{k}\ifmmode\cdot\else\textperiodcentered\fi{}\mathbf{p}$ approach. From the obtained electronic band structure and the Fermi energy, we explain why the anomalous effect induced by the chiral anomaly and the Berry curvature in the energy band can be observed experimentally in magnetotransport coefficients in both low- and high-density samples. Moreover, the quantum and transport mobilities are calculated on the basis of the momentum-balance equation derived from a semiclassical Boltzmann equation with the electron-impurity interaction. The quantum and transport mobilities obtained from this study agree both qualitatively and quantitatively with those measured experimentally. We also examine the electron mobilities along different crystal directions in ${\mathrm{Na}}_{3}\mathrm{Bi}$ and find them largely anisotropic. The theoretical findings from this work can be helpful in gaining an in-depth understanding of the experimental results and of the basic electronic and transport properties of newly developed 3D Dirac systems.