Optical Conductivity of a Two-Dimensional Electron Liquid with Spin-Orbit Interaction

TL;DR

This paper investigates how spin-orbit interaction affects the optical conductivity of a two-dimensional electron liquid, revealing that electron-electron interactions influence optical responses when Galilean invariance is broken.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical analysis of optical conductivity considering both electron-electron interactions and spin-orbit coupling beyond the RPA approximation.

Findings

Optical conductivity becomes sensitive to many-body effects due to spin-orbit coupling.

Galilean invariance breaking allows electron-electron interactions to influence optical responses.

The analysis extends understanding of optical properties in spin-orbit coupled electron systems.

Abstract

The interplay of electron-electron interactions and spin-orbit coupling leads to a new contribution to the homogeneous optical conductivity of the electron liquid. The latter is known to be insensitive to many-body effects for a conventional electron system with parabolic dispersion. The parabolic spectrum has its origin in the Galilean invariance which is broken by spin-orbit coupling. This opens up a possibility for the optical conductivity to probe electron-electron interactions. We analyze the interplay of interactions and spin-orbit coupling and obtain optical conductivity beyond RPA.