Magnetoresistance when Spin Effects on Conduction are Weak

TL;DR

This paper investigates magnetoresistance in materials with weak spin effects, revealing how diffusive scattering influences electron loops and leads to phenomena like linear-in-field resistance, with new insights into quantum coherence in topological insulators.

Contribution

It introduces a spinless framework to analyze magnetoconductance, deriving loop area distributions for various phenomena and connecting linear-in-field resistance to diffusive scattering and quantum coherence.

Findings

Linear-in-field resistance arises from diffusive scattering.

Loop area distributions for Landau levels and localization are derived.

New results include distributions for Levy flights and linear-in-field resistance.

Abstract

This paper considers certain materials, including topological insulators, where spin rotation symmetry is broken much more strongly than time reversal symmetry. When these materials are in the diffusive regime, i.e. when they have disorder that is strong enough to cause an electron to scatter many times while crossing a sample, electrons and holes move in pairs that have zero spin and are insensitive to spin physics. Working within this spinless scenario, we show that Fourier transforming the magnetoconductance with respect to external magnetic field obtains a curve describing the area distribution of loops traced by electrons and holes within the sample. We present loop area distributions of Landau levels, weak (anti)localization, conduction governed by Levy flights, and linear-in-field resistance. Of these four the last two are new results. Comparing these distributions, we argue that the linear-in-field resistance seen in some topological insulators is caused by the same diffusive scattering that causes weak antilocalization. The difference is that linear-in-field resistance materials retain a level of quantum coherence that is usually seen only on the surface of 2-D wires or in ring geometries. In an appendix we include some speculative material about linear-in-temperature resistance.