Berry Phase Effects on Electronic Properties

Ever since its discovery, the Berry phase has permeated through all branches of physics. Over the last three decades, it was gradually realized that the Berry phase of the electronic wave function can have a profound effect on material properties and is responsible for a spectrum of phenomena, such as ferroelectricity, orbital magnetism, various (quantum/anomalous/spin) Hall effects, and quantum charge pumping. This progress is summarized in a pedagogical manner in this review. We start with a brief summary of necessary background, followed by a detailed discussion of the Berry phase effect in a variety of solid state applications. A common thread of the review is the semiclassical formulation of electron dynamics, which is a versatile tool in the study of electron dynamics in the presence of electromagnetic fields and more general perturbations. Finally, we demonstrate a re-quantization method that converts a semiclassical theory to an effective quantum theory. It is clear that the Berry phase should be added as a basic ingredient to our understanding of basic material properties.Comment: 48 pages, 16 figures, submitted to RM

Magnetization Plateau of Classical Ising Model on Shastry-Sutherland Lattice

We study the magnetization for the classical antiferromagnetic Ising model on the Shastry-Sutherland lattice using the tensor renormalization group approach. With this method, one can probe large spin systems with little finite-size effect. For a range of temperature and coupling constant, a single magnetization plateau at one third of the saturation value is found. We investigate the dependence of the plateau width on temperature and on the strength of magnetic frustration. Furthermore, the spin configuration of the plateau state at zero temperature is determined.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figure

Probing isospin- and momentum-dependent nuclear effective interactions in neutron-rich matter

The single-particle potentials for nucleons and hyperons in neutron-rich matter generally depends on the density and isospin asymmetry of the medium as well as the momentum and isospin of the particle. It further depends on the temperature of the matter if the latter is in thermal equilibrium. We review here the extension of a Gogny-type isospin- and momentum-dependent interaction in several aspects made in recent years and their applications in studying intermediate-energy heavy ion collisions, thermal properties of asymmetric nuclear matter and properties of neutron stars. The importance of the isospin- and momentum-dependence of the single-particle potential, especially the momentum dependence of the isovector potential, is clearly revealed throughout these studies.Comment: 27 pages, 19 figures, 1 table, accepted version to appear in EPJA special volume on Nuclear Symmetry Energ

The effect of in-plane magnetic field on the spin Hall effect in Rashba-Dresselhaus system

In a two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit couplings, there are two spin-split energy surfaces connected with a degenerate point. Both the energy surfaces and the topology of the Fermi surfaces can be varied by an in-plane magnetic field. We find that, if the chemical potential falls between the bottom of the upper band and the degenerate point, then simply by changing the direction of the magnetic field, the magnitude of the spin Hall conductivity can be varied by about 100 percent. Once the chemical potential is above the degenerate point, the spin Hall conductivity becomes the constant $e/8\pi$, independent of the magnitude and direction of the magnetic field. In addition, we find that the in-plane magnetic field exerts no influence on the charge Hall conductivity.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, to be published on Phys. Rev.

Streda-like formula in spin Hall effect

A generalized Streda formula is derived for the spin transport in spin-orbit coupled systems. As compared with the original Streda formula for charge transport, there is an extra contribution of the spin Hall conductance whenever the spin is not conserved. For recently studied systems with quantum spin Hall effect in which the z-component spin is conserved, this extra contribution vanishes and the quantized value of spin Hall conductivity can be reproduced in the present approach. However, as spin is not conserved in general, this extra contribution can not be neglected, and the quantization is not exact.Comment: 4 pages, no figur