Dresden 2014 – scientific programme

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HL: Fachverband Halbleiterphysik

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

HL 79.3: Talk

Wednesday, April 2, 2014, 17:00–17:15, HSZ 204

Influence of a random Rashba spin-orbit coupling on the transport properties of helical liquids — •Florian Geißler, Francois Crepin, and Björn Trauzettel — Theoretische Physik IV, Universität Würzburg, Germany

In a quantum spin Hall system, the edge states are one-dimensional and helical, i.e. their (pseudo) spin degree of freedom and their direction of motion are strongly coupled to each other. This coupling gives rise to protection against elastic backscattering off non-magnetic impurities. Here, we analyze inelastic (two-particle) backscattering in interacting helical liquids in presence of random Rashba spin-orbit coupling. To study this peculiar type of disorder, we bosonize the Hamiltonian and employ a combination of operator product expansion and renormalization group calculations. Thereby, we obtain a consistent set of flow equations for the renormalization of the Luttinger liquid parameters, the disorder strength, and the two-particle backscattering. Finally, we discuss the corrections to the conductance at finite temperature stemming from this type of disorder.