Delocalization of charge and current in a chiral quasiparticle wave packet

Subhajit Sarkar

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

A chiral quasiparticle wave packet (c-QPWP) is defined as a conventional superposition of chiral quasiparticle states corresponding to an interacting electron system in two dimensions (2D) in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit coupling (RSOC). I investigate its internal structure via studying the charge and the current densities within the first-order perturbation in the electron-electron interaction. It is found that the c-QPWP contains a localized charge which is less than the magnitude of the bare charge and the remaining charge resides at the system boundary. The amount of charge delocalized turns out to be inversely proportional to the degenerate Fermi velocity v0(=α2+2μ/m) when RSOC (with strength α) is weak, and therefore externally tunable. For strong RSOC, the magnitudes of both the delocalized charge and the current further strongly depend on the direction of propagation of the wave packet. Both the charge and the current densities consist of an anisotropic r-2 tail away from the center of the wave packet. Possible implications of such delocalizations in real systems corresponding to 2D semiconductor heterostructure are also discussed within the context of particle injection experiments.

Original languageEnglish
Article number115112
JournalPhysical Review B
Volume97
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - 7 Mar 2018
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Condensed Matter Physics

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