Demonstration of Rashba spin splitting in GaN-based heterostructures

The circular photogalvanic effect (CPGE), induced by infrared radiation, has been observed in (0001)-oriented GaN quantum well (QW) structures. The photocurrent changes sign upon reversing the radiation helicity demonstrating the existence of spin-splitting of the conduction band in k-space in this type of materials. The observation suggests the presence of a sizeable Rashba type of spin-splitting, caused by the built-in asymmetry at the AlGaN/GaN interface.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Spin-dependent tunnelling through a symmetric barrier

The problem of electron tunnelling through a symmetric semiconductor barrier based on zinc-blende-structure material is studied. The $k^3$ Dresselhaus terms in the effective Hamiltonian of bulk semiconductor of the barrier are shown to result in a dependence of the tunnelling transmission on the spin orientation. The difference of the transmission probabilities for opposite spin orientations can achieve several percents for the reasonable width of the barriers.Comment: 3 pages, Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Magneto-Gyrotropic Photogalvanic Effects in Semiconductor Quantum Wells

We show that free-carrier (Drude) absorption of both polarized and unpolarized terahertz radiation in quantum well (QW) structures causes an electric photocurrent in the presence of an in-plane magnetic field. Experimental and theoretical analysis evidences that the observed photocurrents are spin-dependent and related to the gyrotropy of the QWs. Microscopic models for the photogalvanic effects in QWs based on asymmetry of photoexcitation and relaxation processes are proposed. In most of the investigated structures the observed magneto-induced photocurrents are caused by spin-dependent relaxation of non-equilibrium carriers

Isospin breaking corrections to low-energy pi-K scattering

We evaluate the matrix elements for the processes pi^0 K^0 -> pi^0 K^0 and pi^- K^+ -> pi^0 K^0 in the presence of isospin breaking terms at leading and next-to-leading order. As a direct application the releveant combination of the S-wave scattering lengths involved in the pion-kaon atom lifetime is determined. We discuss the sensitivity of the results with respect to the input parameters.Comment: 33 pages, plain latex, 2 figure

The Strong Isospin-Breaking Correction for the Gluonic Penguin Contribution to epsilon'/epsilon at Next-to-Leading Order in the Chiral Expansion

The strong isospin-breaking correction, Omega_{st}, which appears in estimates of the Standard Model value for the direct CP-violating ratio epsilon'/epsilon, is evaluated to next-to-leading order (NLO) in the chiral expansion using Chiral Perturbation Theory. The relevant linear combinations of the unknown NLO CP-odd weak low-energy constants (LEC's) which, in combination with 1-loop and strong LEC contributions, are required for a complete determination at this order, are estimated using two different models. It is found that, to NLO, Omega_{st}=0.08 +/- 0.05, significantly reduced from the ``standard'' value, 0.25 +/- 0.08, employed in recent analyses. The potentially significant numerical impact of this decrease on Standard Model predictions for epsilon'/epsilon, associated with the decreased cancellation between gluonic penguin and electroweak penguin contributions, is also discussed.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figur

Resonant inversion of circular photogalvanic effect in n-doped quantum wells,

We show that the sign of the circular photogalvanic effect can be changed by tuning the radiation frequency of circularly polarized light. Here resonant inversion of the photogalvanic effect has been observed for direct intersubband transition in n-type GaAs quantum well structures. This inversion of the photon helicity driven current is a direct consequence of the lifting of the spin degeneracy due to k-linear terms in the Hamiltonian in combination with energy and momentum conservation and optical selection rules