Spin polarised scanning tunneling probe for helical Luttinger liquids

Sourin Das, Sumathi Rao

Published 2010-06-11, updated 2011-05-17Version 2

We propose a three terminal spin polarized stm setup for probing the helical nature of the Luttinger liquid edge state that appears in the quantum spin Hall system. We show that the three-terminal tunneling conductance strongly depends on the angle ($\theta$) between the magnetization direction of the tip and the local orientation of the electron spin on the edge while the two terminal conductance is independent of this angle. We demonstrate that chiral injection of an electron into the helical Luttinger liquid (which occurs when $\theta$ is zero or $\pi$) is associated with fractionalization of the spin of the injected electron in addition to the fractionalization of its charge. We also point out a spin current amplification effect induced by the spin fractionalization.