Inelastic magnetic scattering effect on local density of states of topological insulators

Abstract

Magnetic ions such as Fe, Mn and Co with localized spins may be adsorbed on the surface of topological insulators like \Bi. They form scattering centers for the helical surface states which have a Dirac cone dispersion as long as the local spins are disordered. However, the local density of states (LDOS) may be severely modified by the formation of bound states. Commonly only elastic scattering due to normal and exchange potentials of the adatom is assumed. Magnetization measurements show, however, that considerable magnetic single ion anisotropies exist which lead to a splitting of the local impurity spin states resulting in a singlet ground state. Therefore inelastic scattering processes of helical Dirac electrons become possible as described by a dynamical local self energy of second order in the exchange interaction. The self energy influences bound state formation and leads to significant new anomalies in the LDOS at low energies and low temperatures which we calculate within T-matrix approach. We propose that they may be used for spectroscopy of local impurity spin states by appropriate tuning of chemical potential and magnetic field.