Analogy between Jahn-Teller distortion and Rashba spin splitting, and Jahn-Teller counterpart of spin texture

TL;DR

This paper explores a novel analogy between Jahn-Teller distortions and Rashba spin splitting, revealing their conceptual similarities and proposing experimental detection methods for orbital textures, thus bridging molecular and condensed matter physics.

Contribution

It establishes a new analogy between Jahn-Teller effects and Rashba spin splitting, introducing the concept of orbital texture as a counterpart to spin texture and discussing experimental detection.

Findings

Orbital texture in Jahn-Teller systems parallels spin texture in Rashba physics.

Analogies enable transfer of concepts between molecular and condensed matter physics.

Potential experimental methods for detecting orbital textures are proposed.

Abstract

In developing physical theories analogical reasoning has been found to be very powerful, as attested by a number of important historical examples. An analogy between two apparently different phenomena, once established, allows one to transfer information and bring new concepts from one phenomenon to the other. Here we discuss an important analogy between two widely different physical problems, namely, the Jahn-Teller distortion in molecular physics and the Rashba spin splitting in condensed matter physics. By exploring their conceptual and mathematical features and by searching for the counterparts between them, we examine the orbital texture in Jahn-Teller systems, as the counterpart of the spin texture of the Rashba physics, and put forward a possible way of experimentally detecting the orbital texture. Finally, we discuss the analogy by comparing the coexistence of linear Rashba+Dresselhaus effects and Jahn-Teller problems for specific symmetries, which allow for non-trivial spin and orbital textures, respectively.