Dresden 2014 – scientific programme

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HL: Fachverband Halbleiterphysik

HL 79: Transport: Topological insulators II (organized by TT)

HL 79.1: Talk

Wednesday, April 2, 2014, 16:30–16:45, HSZ 204

Rashba spin orbit coupling in the Kane-Mele-Hubbard model — •Stephan Rachel — Institut für Theoretische Physik, TU Dresden

Spin-orbit (SO) coupling is the crucial ingredient for topological insulating phases. In particular, the generic emergence of SO coupling involves the Rashba term which fully breaks the SU(2) spin symmetry. As soon as interactions are taken into account, however, many theoretical studies have to content themselves with the analysis of a simplified U(1) conserving SO term without Rashba coupling. We intend to fill this gap by studying the Kane-Mele-Hubbard model in the presence of Rashba SO coupling. We apply the variational cluster approach to determine the interacting phase diagram by computing local density of states, magnetization, single particle spectral function, and edge states.

We find that the Rashba SO coupling drives new electronic phases such as a metallic regime and a "gapless topological insulator phase" which persist in the presence of interactions.