Spin-orbit Scattering and the Kondo Effect

TL;DR

This paper theoretically investigates how spin-orbit scattering influences the Kondo effect, revealing that it does not suppress the effect due to time-reversal symmetry, and explores the impact of magnetic fields on transport properties.

Contribution

It demonstrates that spin-orbit scattering does not suppress the Kondo effect due to symmetry considerations and analyzes the effects of magnetic fields on transport measurements.

Findings

Spin-orbit scattering does not suppress the Kondo effect.

Orbital magnetic fields induce effective Zeeman splitting.

Magnetic field and temperature dependence resemble weak-localization effects.

Abstract

The effects of spin-orbit scattering of conduction electrons in the Kondo regime are investigated theoretically. It is shown that due to time-reversal symmetry, spin-orbit scattering does not suppress the Kondo effect, even though it breaks spin-rotational symmetry, in full agreement with experiment. An orbital magnetic field, which breaks time-reversal symmetry, leads to an effective Zeeman splitting, which can be probed in transport measurements. It is shown that, similar to weak-localization, this effect has anomalous magnetic field and temperature dependence.