We study the coherent transport of heavy holes through a one-dimensional ring
in the presence of spin-orbit coupling. Spin-orbit interaction of holes, cubic
in the in-plane components of momentum, gives rise to an angular momentum
dependent spin texture of the eigenstates and influences transport. We analyze
the dependence of the resulting differential conductance of the ring on hole
polarization of the leads and the signature of the textures in the
Aharonov-Bohm oscillations when the ring is in a perpendicular magnetic field.
We find that the polarization-resolved conductance reveals whether the dominant
spin-orbit coupling is of Dresselhaus or Rashba type, and that the cubic
spin-orbit coupling can be distinguished from the conventional linear coupling
by observing the four-peak structure in the Aharonov-Bohm oscillations.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figure