Magnetic impurity affected by spin-orbit coupling: Behavior near a topological phase transition

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© 2013 American Physical Society (APS). This is the accepted version of the following article: Hu, F. M. & Wehling, T. O. & Gubernatis, J. E. & Frauenheim, Thomas & Nieminen, Risto M. 2013. Magnetic impurity affected by spin-orbit coupling: Behavior near a topological phase transition. Physical Review B. Volume 88, Issue 4. 045106/1-6. 1550-235X (electronic). DOI: 10.1103/physrevb.88.045106, which has been published in final form at http://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevB.88.045106.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
School of Science | A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
Date
2013
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Language
en
Pages
045106/1-6
Series
Physical Review B, Volume 88, Issue 4
Abstract
We investigate the effect of spin-orbit coupling on the behavior of a magnetic impurity at the edge of a zigzag graphene ribbon by means of quantum Monte Carlo simulations. A peculiar interplay of Kane-Mele type spin-orbit and impurity-host coupling is found to greatly affect properties for the local moment. The local characters of the impurity are mainly dominated by the local density of states at the edge, such as double occupancy, magnetic moment, and spin susceptibilities. The special helical nature of the topological insulator on the boundary is found to affect nonlocal quantities, such as the two-particle and spin-spin correlation functions linking electrons on the impurity with those in the conduction band; in particular, due to the spin-orbit coupling, the symmetry of the spin rotation in the Kondo cloud around the impurity is partly broken.
Description
Keywords
spin-orbit coupling, magnetic impurity, Monte Carlo simulations
Other note
Citation
Hu, F. M. & Wehling, T. O. & Gubernatis, J. E. & Frauenheim, Thomas & Nieminen, Risto M. 2013. Magnetic impurity affected by spin-orbit coupling: Behavior near a topological phase transition. Physical Review B. Volume 88, Issue 4. 045106/1-6. 1550-235X (electronic). DOI: 10.1103/physrevb.88.045106.