Dynamics of 2D electron wave packets with different initial spin polarization in 2D structures with spin-orbit coupling

The effect of splitting and zitterbewegung of 2D-electrons wave packets in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit coupling has been investigated. It is shown that nonstandard dynamics of wave packets occurs in the systems where the complete system of eigenfunctions is formed by states with different chirality. The time evolution of wave packets depends on the initial electron spin orientation. It is established that the oscillations of packet centers decay with time. Similar effects were studied by us previously for packets with initial spin orientation perpendicular to the 2D electron gas plane.     

Dynamics of electron wave packets in topological insulators

Dynamics of wave packets formed by surface (edge) electronic states in topological insulators has been investigated. The spin and electron probability density, as well as zitterbewegung, of wave packets have been calculated analytically and numerically for various values of the Hamiltonian parameters. The effects of the main parameters (size and spin polarization) of the wave packets on a change in the packet shape and oscillations of their average velocity have been considered.     

Wave packet splitting and zitterbewegung in two-dimensional semiconductor structures with spin-orbit coupling

Dynamics of electron wave packets in an asymmetric quantum well in the presence of Rashba spinorbit coupling was analytically and numerically studied. Electron Green’s functions were introduced and the evolution of 1D and 2D wave packets was studied. The effect of packet splitting caused by the presence of two branches with different chiralities in the Rashba Hamiltonian spectrum and zitterbewegung, i.e., packet center’s jitter, was studied. Spatial components of the spin density were calculated. It was shown that the component of the spin density S _y in split parts of the wave packet has opposite signs, and two other spin density components oscillate in space between scattering packets.     

Zitterbewegung of wave packets and conductance of a quasi-one-dimensional channel in the presence of spin-orbit coupling

The electron energy spectrum and wave functions for a quasi-one-dimensional channel with Rashba spin-orbit coupling are calculated. The dynamics of wave packets in thin wires based on GaAs/In_0.23Ga_0.77As and AlGaAs/GaAs heterostructures with Rashba spin-orbit coupling are studied. Spin polarizations are found. The effect of splitting of wave packets with respect to their centers of mass and Zitterbewegung of their centers are discovered. The characteristics of wave-packet oscillations and spin density for free electrons and under confinement conditions are compared. A method for controlling the conductance of the quasi-one-dimensional channel using a controlling electrode is proposed.     

Scattering of Wave Packets on the Surface of Topological Insulators in the Presence of Potential Barriers with Magnetization

The nonstationary Schrödinger equation is solved numerically by the Cayley method for wave packets that are formed from surface states on the surface of topological insulators and are scattered by a potential barrier, including a barrier with magnetization. The transmission coefficient and spin density distributions are calculated. Expressions are found for the static transmission coefficient through a barrier with the use of the plane-wave approximation and its generalization for wave packets. It is shown that the two-dimensional nature of wave packets leads to noticeable differences in the behavior of the transmission coefficient compared to that in the plane-wave scattering problem. For instance, two-dimensional packets exhibit a significant suppression of Klein tunneling in some energy regions. The results obtained show that the tunneling and spin density of localized wave-packet-type electronic states in structures based on topological insulators can be affected through potential barriers.     

Coherent transport of neutral atoms in spin-dependent optical lattice potentials

We demonstrate the controlled coherent transport and splitting of atomic wave packets in spin-dependent optical lattice potentials. Such experiments open intriguing possibilities for quantum state engineering of many body states. After first preparing localized atomic wave functions in an optical lattice through a Mott insulating phase, we place each atom in a superposition of two internal spin states. Then state selective optical potentials are used to split the wave function of a single atom and transport the corresponding wave packets in two opposite directions. Coherence between the wave packets of an atom delocalized over up to seven lattice sites is demonstrated.     

Spin diffusion in semiconductors

The behavior of spin diffusion in doped semiconductors is shown to be qualitatively different than in undoped (intrinsic) ones. Whereas a spin packet in an intrinsic semiconductor must be a multiple-band disturbance, involving inhomogeneous distributions of both electrons and holes, in a doped semiconductor a single-band disturbance is possible. For n-doped nonmagnetic semiconductors the enhancement of diffusion due to a degenerate electron sea in the conduction band is much larger for these single-band spin packets than for charge packets-this explains the anomalously large spin diffusion recently observed in n-doped GaAs at 1.6 K. In n-doped ferromagnetic and semimagnetic semiconductors the motion of spin packets polarized antiparallel to the equilibrium carrier spin polarization is predicted to be an order of magnitude faster than for parallel polarized spin packets. These results are reversed for p-doped semiconductors.     

Emission of noise-like spin wave packets in the presence of three-magnon decay processes and the kinetic instability of waves in a ferromagnetic film

The features of spin wave emission from a ferromagnetic film in the direction of the propagation of a surface magnetostatic wave have been experimentally investigated at various input signal powers. Radiation in the form of two noise-like spin wave packets has been detected near the frequency corresponding to half the pump frequency. This radiation is caused by three-magnon processes of the decay of a surface magnetostatic wave and by the kinetic instability of spin waves.     

Reprint of : Transient dynamics of spin-polarized injection in helical Luttinger liquids

We analyze the time evolution of spin-polarized electron wave packets injected into the edge states of a two-dimensional topological insulator. In the presence of electron interactions, the system is described as a helical Luttinger liquid and injected electrons fractionalize. However, because of the presence of metallic detectors, no evidences of fractionalization are encoded in dc measurements, and in this regime the system does not show deviations from its non-interacting behavior. Nevertheless, we show that the helical Luttinger liquid nature emerges in the transient dynamics, where signatures of charge/spin fractionalization can be clearly identified.     

A method for constructing radial wave packets with application to target distortion in electron-atom collisions

It has been shown that an analysis of radial stationary state wave functions of a particle in terms of their loops leads to such continuous, single-valued and finite functions which represent a practically convenient form of the radial wave packets of that particle at various positions. The radial wave packets have been used to investigate target distortion in electron-atom collisions. The distortion of the target is defined in terms of quantum-mechanical probabilities given by the wave packets. A closed expression which depends upon the position of the colliding electron, is obtained for the potential energy of the target in the field of the colliding electron.     

Self-generation of two-dimensional spin-wave bullets

The experimental observation of self-generation of two-dimensional, self-focusing nonlinear spin wave packets-spin wave bullets-in an active ring is reported. The ring is composed of a ferrite film with two antennae for excitation and detection of the wave packets, and a microwave amplifier connecting the antennae and closing the ring. Experimental observation has been made by using the time and space resolved Brillouin light scattering technique. The parameters of spin wave bullets self-generated from noise in an active ring are similar to those of bullets coherently excited by external microwave pulses. The observed self-generation process provides unambiguous evidence that wave bullets are intrinsic excitations of a two-dimensional nonlinear medium with dissipation that is focusing in both directions.     

Quantum computing through electron propagation in edge states of quantum spin Hall systems

We propose to implement quantum computing by the on-demand control of the wave packets propagation in helical edge channels of the quantum spin Hall systems (QSHs). Two non-commutative single-qubit gates are realized by the gate voltages applied on the edge channels. The two-qubit controlled phase gate is implemented by the capacitive Coulomb interaction between two adjacent edge channels from two parallel QSHs. A universal set of quantum gates thus can be realized in an all-electrical way. It is also shown that the fidelity and the purity of the controlled phase gate can reach a high value, with both the time delay and the finite width of the wave packets taken into account.     

Wave packet echoes in the motion of trapped atoms

We experimentally demonstrate and systematically study the stimulated revival (echo) of motional wave packet oscillations. For this purpose, we prepare wave packets in an optical lattice by nonadiabatically shifting the potential and stimulate their reoccurrence by a second shift after a variable time delay. This technique, analogous to spin echoes, enables one even in the presence of strong dephasing to determine the coherence time of the wave packets. We find that for strongly bound atoms it is comparable to the cooling time and much longer than the inverse of the photon scattering rate.     

Maxwell equation for coupled spin-charge wave propagation

We show that the dissipationless spin current in the ground state of the Rashba model gives rise to a reactive coupling between the spin and charge propagation, which is formally identical to the coupling between the electric and the magnetic fields in the (2 + 1)-dimensional Maxwell equation. This analogy leads to a remarkable effect of fractionalization of spin packets (FSP) where a density packet can spontaneously split into two counterpropagation packets, each carrying the opposite spin. In a certain parameter regime, the coupled spin and charge wave propagates like a transverse "photon." We propose both optical and purely electronic experiments to detect the FSP effect.     

Linear Analysis of Obliquely Propagating Longitudinal Waves in Partially Spin Polarized Degenerate Magnetized Plasma

Linear analysis of low frequency obliquely propagating electrostatic waves in a partially spin polarized degenerate magnetized plasma is presented. Using Fourier analysis, a general linear dispersion relation is derived for low frequency electrostatic lower hybrid(LH) wave, ion acoustic(IA) wave and ion cyclotron(IC) wave in the presence of electron spin polarization. It is found that the electron spin polarization gives birth to a new spin-dependent wave(spin electron acoustic wave) in the spectrum of these waves. Further, the electron spin polarization also causes drastic shifts in the frequency spectrum of these waves. These effects would have a strong bearing on wave phenomena in degenerate astrophysical plasmas.     

Spin-charge separation in cold fermi gases: a real time analysis

Using the adaptive time-dependent density-matrix renormalization group method for the 1D Hubbard model, the splitting of local perturbations into separate wave packets carrying charge and spin is observed in real time. We show the robustness of this separation beyond the low-energy Luttinger liquid theory by studying the time evolution of single particle excitations and density wave packets. A striking signature of spin-charge separation is found in 1D cold Fermi gases in a harmonic trap at the boundary between liquid and Mott-insulating phases. We give quantitative estimates for an experimental observation of spin-charge separation in an array of atomic wires.     

Spin precession and electron spin polarization wave in [001]-grown quantum wells

We theoretically study the spatial behaviors of spin precessions modulated by an effective magnetic field in a two-dimensional electron system with spin-orbit interaction. Through analysis of interaction between the spin and the effective magnetic field, we find some laws of spin precession in the system, by which we explain some previous phenomena of spin precession, and predict a controllable electron spin polarization wave in [001]-grown quantum wells. The shape of the wave, like water wave, mostly are ellipse-like or circle-like, and the wavelength is anisotropic in the quantum wells with two unequal coupling strengths of the Rashba and Dresselhaus interactions, and is isotropic in the quantum wells with only one spin orbit interaction.     

Direct measurement of the spatial displacement of Bloch-oscillating electrons in semiconductor superlattices

We present a novel experimental technique which allows to precisely measure the spatial displacement of Bloch-oscillating electrons in semiconductor superlattices as a function of time: The dipole field caused by the motion of the electrons is traced by small shifts of the Wannier–Stark ladder states. The electron wave packet displacement can then be derived from these shifts with the excitation density as the only free parameter. Using this method, we show that the optically generated electron wave packets perform harmonic oscillations, as predicted by Zener for the semiclassical motion of electrons in 1934. The absolute amplitudes of the wave packets depend inversely on the static field and are close to the values expected from semiclassical theory.     

Vortices in quantum spin systems

We examine spin vortices in ferromagnetic quantum Heisenberg models with planar anisotropy on two-dimensional lattices. The symmetry properties and the time evolution of vortices built up from spin-coherent states are studied in detail. Although these states show a dispersion typical for wave packets, important features of classical vortices are conserved. Moreover, the results on symmetry properties provide a construction scheme for vortex-like excitations from exact eigenstates, which have a well-controlled time evolution. Our approach works for arbitrary spin length both on triangular and square lattices. Received 2 October 1998