Wigner crystal of a two-dimensional electron gas with a strong spin-orbit interaction
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
2014-08-12 v2 Strongly Correlated Electrons
Abstract
The Wigner-crystal phase of two-dimensional electrons interacting via the Coulomb repulsion and subject to a strong Rashba spin-orbit coupling is investigated. For low enough electronic densities the spin-orbit band splitting can be larger than the zero-point energy of the lattice vibrations. Then the degeneracy of the lower subband results in a spontaneous symmetry breaking of the vibrational ground state. The rotational symmetry of the triangular (spin-orbit coupling free) structure is lost, and the unit cell of the new lattice contains two electrons. Breaking the rotational symmetry also leads to a (slight) squeezing of the underlying triangular lattice.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1309.2307,
title = {Wigner crystal of a two-dimensional electron gas with a strong spin-orbit interaction},
author = {P. G. Silvestrov and O. Entin-Wohlman},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1309.2307},
year = {2014}
}
Comments
5 pages + appendix, 3 figures, minor improvements to the text