Rashba precession in quantum wires

The length over which electron spins reverse direction due to the Rashba effect when injected with an initial polarization along the axes of a quantum wire is investigated theoretically. A soft wall confinement of the wire renormalizes the spin-orbit parameter (and the effective mass) stronger than hard walls. Electron-electron interactions enhance the Rashba precession while evidence is found that the coupling between transport channels may suppress it.Comment: 4 pages, 1 Postscript figur

Dephasing in Rashba spin precession along mutlichannel quantum wires and nanotubes

Coherent Rashba spin precession along interacting multi-mode quantum channels is investigated, revisiting the theory of coupled Tomonaga-Luttinger liquids. We identify susceptibilities as the key-parameters to govern exponents and Rashba precession lengths. In semiconducting quantum wires spins of different transport channels are found to {\em dephase} in their respective precession angles with respect to one another, as a result of the interaction. This could explain the experimental difficulty to realize the Datta Das transistor. In single walled carbon nanotubes, on the other hand, interactions are predicted to suppress dephasing between the two flavor modes at small doping.Comment: 6 pages, figures include

Wigner molecules in quantum dots

We perform unrestricted Hartree-Fock (HF) calculations for electrons in a parabolic quantum dot at zero magnetic field. The crossover from Fermi liquid to Wigner molecule behavior is studied for up to eight electrons and various spin components $S_z$. We compare the results with numerically exact path-integral Monte Carlo simulations and earlier HF studies. Even in the strongly correlated regime the symmetry breaking HF solutions provide accurate estimates for the energies and describe the one-particle densities qualitatively. However, the HF approximation favors the formation of a Wigner molecule and produces azimuthal modulations of the density for even numbers of electrons in one spatial shell.Comment: 5 pages, figures include

Interaction-induced conductance from zero modes in a clean magnetic graphene waveguide

We consider a waveguide formed in a clean graphene monolayer by a spatially inhomogeneous magnetic field. The single-particle dispersion relation for this waveguide exhibits a zero-energy Landau-like flat band, while finite-energy bands have dispersion and correspond, in particular, to snake orbits. For zero-mode states, all matrix elements of the current operator vanish, and a finite conductance can only be caused by virtual transitions to finite-energy bands. We show that Coulomb interactions generate such processes. In stark contrast to finite-energy bands, the conductance is not quantized and shows a characteristic dependence on the zero-mode filling. Transport experiments thereby offer a novel and highly sensitive probe of electron-electron interactions in clean graphene samples. We argue that this interaction-driven zero-mode conductor may also appear in other physical settings and is not captured by the conventional Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid description.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, published versio

Influence of spin on the persistent current of strongly interacting electrons

The lowest eigenenergies of few, strongly interacting electrons in a one--dimensional ring are studied in the presence of an impurity barrier. The persistent current $\:I\:$, periodic in an Aharonov--Bohm flux penetrating the ring, is strongly influenced by the electron spin. The impurity does not remove discontinuities in $\:I\:$ at zero temperature. The total electron spin of the ground state oscillates with the flux. Strong electron--electron interaction enhances $\:I\:$, albeit not up to the value of the clean ring which itself is smaller than $\:I\:$ for free electrons. $\:I\:$ disappears on a temperature scale that depends exponentially on the electron density. In the limit of very strong interaction the response to small fluxes is diamagnetic.Comment: Latex file, 15 pages, 13 figures available in uuencoded PostScript from the autho