Probing chiral symmetry with a topological domain wall sensor

In condensed matter physics, chiral symmetry is often associated with superconductors or materials hosting Dirac fermions, such as graphene or topological insulators. In these contexts, chiral symmetry is an emergent low-energy property, accompanied by an emergent spectral symmetry.

However, since the presence of spectral symmetry does not necessarily imply chiral symmetry, a key question arises: how can these two properties be experimentally differentiated? In this study, we demonstrate that a system with preserved spectral symmetry can reveal underlying broken chiral symmetry through the presence of topological defects. Our findings shows that these defects induce a spectral imbalance in the Landau level spectrum, providing direct evidence of symmetry alteration at topological domain walls.