Spin-orbit coupling and spectral function of interacting electrons in carbon nanotubes

Abstract

The electronic spin-orbit coupling in carbon nanotubes is strongly enhanced by the curvature of the tube surface and has important effects on the single-particle spectrum. Here, we include the full spin-orbit interaction in the formulation of the effective low-energy theory for interacting electrons in metallic single-wall carbon nanotubes and study its consequences. The resulting theory is a four-channel Luttinger liquid, where spin and charge modes are mixed. We show that the analytic structure of the spectral function is strongly affected by this mixing, which can provide an experimental signature of the spin-orbit interaction.