Derivation of a linear collision operator for the spinorial Wigner equation and its semiclassical limit

Abstract

We systematically derive a linear quantum collision operator for the spinorial Wigner transport equation from the dynamics of a composite quantum system. For suitable two particle interaction potentials, the particular matrix form of the collision operator describes spin decoherence or even spin depolarization as well as relaxation towards a certain momentum distribution in the long time limit. It is demonstrated that in the semiclassical limit the spinorial Wigner equation gives rise to several semiclassical spin-transport models. As an example, we derive the Bloch equations as well as the spinorial Boltzmann equation, which in turn gives rise to spin drift-diffusion models which are increasingly used to describe spin-polarized transport in spintronic devices. The presented derivation allows to systematically incorporate Born-Markov as well as quantum corrections into these models.