Effective lattice model for the collective modes in a Fermi liquid with spin-orbit coupling

Abstract

A Fermi-liquid (FL) with spin-orbit coupling (SOC) supports a special type of collective modes--chiral spin waves--which are oscillations of magnetization even in the absence of the external magnetic field. We study the chiral spin waves of a two-dimensional FL in the presence of both the Rashba and Dresselhaus types of SOC and also subject to the in-plane magnetic field. We map the system of coupled kinetic equations for the angular harmonics of the occupation number onto an effective one-dimensional tight-binding model, in which the lattice sites correspond to angular-momentum channels. Linear-in-momentum SOC ensures that the effective tight-binding model has only nearest-neighbor hopping on a bipartite lattice. In this language, the continuum of spin-flip particle-hole excitations becomes a conduction band of the lattice model, whereas electron-electron interaction, parameterized by the harmonics of the Landau function, is mapped onto lattice defects of both on-site and bond type. Collective modes correspond to bound states formed by such defects. All the features of the collective-mode spectrum receive natural explanation in the lattice picture as resulting from the competition between on-site and bond defects.