Zitterbewegung of a heavy hole in presence of spin-orbit interaction

Tutul Biswas, Sandip Chowdhury, Tarun Kanti Ghosh

Published 2015-07-06Version 1

We study the $zitterbewegung$ of a heavy hole in presence of both cubic Rashba and cubic Dresselhaus spin-orbit interaction. On contrary to the electronic case, $zitterbewegung$ does not vanish for equal strength of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit interaction. This non-vanishing of $zitterbewegung$ is associated with the Berry phase. Due to the presence of the spin-orbit coupling the spin associated with the heavy hole precesses about an effective magnetic field. This spin precession produces a transverse spin-orbit force which also generates an electric voltage associated with $zitterbewegung$. We have estimated the magnitude of this voltage for a possible experimental detection of $zitterbewegung$.