Electron scattering from domain walls in ferromagnetic Luttinger liquids

Abstract

We study the properties of interacting electrons in a one-dimensional conduction band coupled to bulk non-collinear ferromagnetic order. The specific form of non-collinearity we consider is that of an extended domain wall. The presence of ferromagnetic order breaks spin-charge separation and the domain wall introduces a spin-dependent scatterer active over the length of the wall l. Both forward and backward scattering off the domain wall can be relevant perturbations of the Luttinger liquid and we discuss the possible low temperature phases. Our main finding is that backward scattering, while determining the ultimate low temperature physics, only becomes important at temperatures T/J < exp(-l/l_+) with J being the magnetic exchange and l_+ the backward scattering length scale. In physical realizations, l >> l_+ and the physics will be dominated by forward scattering which can lead to a charge conducting but spin insulating phase. In a perturbative regime at higher temperatures we furthermore calculate the spin and charge densities around the domain wall and quantitatively discuss the interaction induced changes.

13 pages, 7 figures, extended discussion of the RG flow at low temperatures

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Transport and scattering in inhomogeneous quantum wires
• Conducting fixed points for inhomogeneous quantum wires: a conformally invariant boundary theory
• Conductance in inhomogeneous quantum wires: Luttinger liquid predictions and quantum Monte Carlo results
• The Two-Band Luttinger Liquid with Spin-Orbit Coupling: Applications to Monatomic Chains on Surfaces
• Spectral properties of one-dimensional spiral spin density wave states
• Negative differential magneto-resistance in ferromagnetic wires with domain walls
• Local spin transfer torque and magnetoresistance in domain walls with variable width