Transport theory for disordered multiple-band systems: Anomalous Hall effect and anisotropic magnetoresistance

TL;DR

This paper develops a transport theory for disordered multi-band systems considering Berry curvature effects, applying it to a Rashba 2DEG ferromagnet to analyze the anomalous Hall effect and anisotropic magnetoresistance with detailed numerical and analytical insights.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive Keldysh formalism-based approach for transport in disordered multi-band systems, addressing higher order scattering and anisotropy effects, and clarifies discrepancies among existing theories.

Findings

Reproduces analytical results in the metallic regime.

Shows the AHE diminishes with increasing disorder and can change sign.

Highlights the importance of higher order skew scattering processes.

Abstract

We present a study of transport in multiple-band non-interacting Fermi metallic systems based on the Keldysh formalism, taking into account the effects of Berry curvature due to spin-orbit coupling. We apply this formalism to a Rashba 2DEG ferromagnet and calculate the anomalous Hall effect (AHE) and anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR). The numerical calculations reproduce analytical results in the metallic regime revealing the crossover between the skew scattering mechanism dominating in the clean systems and intrinsic mechanism dominating in the moderately dirty systems. As we increase the disorder further, the AHE starts to diminish due to the spectral broadening of the quasiparticles. Although for certain parameters this reduction of the AHE can be approximated as $\sigma_{xy}\thicksim\sigma_{xx}^{\varphi}$ with $\varphi$ varying around 1.6, this is found not to be true in general as $\sigma_{xy}$ can go through a change in sign as a function of disorder strength in some cases. The reduction region in which the quasiparticle approximation is meaningful is relatively narrow; therefore, a theory with a wider range of applicability is called for. By considering the higher order skew scattering processes, we resolve some discrepancies between the AHE results obtained by using the Keldysh, Kubo and Boltzmann approaches. We also show that similar higher order processes are important for the AMR when the nonvertex and vertex parts cancel each other. We calculate the AMR in anisotropic systems properly taking into account the anisotropy of the non-equilibrium distribution function. These calculations confirm recent findings on the unreliability of common approximations to the Boltzmann equation.