Spin Hall effect in Rashba-Dresselhaus planar strips in the presence of electron correlations

Abstract: A model with both Rashba and Dresselhaus spin orbit (SO) couplings and Hubbard electron-electron interaction is studied on planar strips at quarter filling at zero temperature in the clean limit. In the absence of Hubbard repulsion and at equilibrium, within linear response theory, a nonmonotonic behavior of the spin Hall conductivity as a function of the ratio of the Rashba (alpha) and Dresselhaus (beta) strengths was found for large enough SO strengths. This behavior is signalled by a peak or a cusp, depending on the strip width, at intermediate values of beta/alpha in the interval [0,1]. This behavior of the spin Hall conductivity was correlated with the one for the longitudinal spin conductivity. This study was then extended to the out-of-equilibrium regime that arises by imposing a finite voltage bias between the two ends of an open strip. This system, in the presence of a Hubbard term with coupling U, was treated with the density matrix renormalization group technique and with the Landauer-Buttiker formalism. It was found that relevant properties to the spin Hall effect, such as the transversal spin current and the spin accumulation, present a similar nonmonotonic behavior as the one found for the spin conductivities. More importantly, it was also found that these properties are enhanced by the repulsive Hubbard interaction up to a moderate value of U.