High density limit of the two-dimensional electron liquid with Rashba spin-orbit coupling

TL;DR

This paper analytically investigates the high-density behavior of a two-dimensional electron liquid with Rashba spin-orbit coupling, revealing minimal energy corrections and aligning with quantum Monte Carlo data.

Contribution

It generalizes the ring-diagram expansion to include spin-orbit effects and shows that energy corrections are negligible at leading order, confirming previous numerical findings.

Findings

Spin-orbit coupling causes small energy changes at high density.

Leading energy corrections vanish to lowest order in spin-orbit coupling.

Quantum Monte Carlo data align with neglecting exchange-correlation corrections.

Abstract

We discuss by analytic means the theory of the high-density limit of the unpolarized two-dimensional electron liquid in the presence of Rashba or Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling. A generalization of the ring-diagram expansion is performed. We find that in this regime the spin-orbit coupling leads to small changes of the exchange and correlation energy contributions, while modifying also, via repopulation of the momentum states, the noninteracting energy. As a result, the leading corrections to the chirality and total energy of the system stem from the Hartree-Fock contributions. The final results are found to be vanishing to lowest order in the spin-orbit coupling, in agreement with a general property valid to every order in the electron-electron interaction. We also show that recent quantum Monte Carlo data in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit coupling are well understood by neglecting corrections to the exchange-correlation energy, even at low density values.