Renormalization group approach for the scattering off a single Rashba impurity in a helical liquid

Abstract

The occurrence of two-particle inelastic backscattering has been conjectured in helical edge states of topological insulators and is expected to alter transport. In this Letter, by using a renormalization group approach, we provide a microscopic derivation of this process, in the presence of a time-reversal invariant Rashba impurity potential. Unlike previous approaches to the problem, we are able to prove that such an effect only occurs in the presence of electron-electron interactions. Furthermore, we find that the linear conductance as a function of temperature exhibits a crossover between two scaling behaviors: $T^{4K}$ for $K>1/2$ and $T^{8K-2}$ for $K<1/2$, with $K$ the Luttinger parameter.

4 pages, 2 figures. Corresponds to published version

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• Nonlocal edge state transport in the quantum spin Hall state
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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Correlation effects in two-dimensional topological insulators
• Quantum interference and Aharonov-Bohm oscillations in topological insulators
• Conductivity of a generic helical liquid
• Spin-helical transport in normal and superconducting topological insulators
• Finite frequency noise in a quantum point contact between helical edge states
• Effects of disorder on electron tunneling through helical edge states
• Quantum impurity in a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid: continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo approach
• Nonequilibrium Spectroscopy of Topological Edge Liquids