The Rashba Hamiltonian describes the splitting of the conduction band as a
result of spin-orbit coupling in the presence of an asymmetric confinement
potential and is commonly used to model the electronic structure of confined
narrow-gap semiconductors. Due to the mixing of spin states some care has to be
exercised in the calculation of transport properties. We derive the diffusive
conductance tensor for a disordered two-dimensional electron gas with
spin-orbit interaction and show that the applied bias induces a spin
accumulation, but that the electric current is not spin-polarized.Comment: REVTeX4 format, 5 page