Coulomb-driven organization and enhancement of spin-orbit fields in collective spin excitations

Abstract

Spin-orbit (SO) fields in a spin-polarized electron gas are studied by angle-resolved inelastic light scattering on a CdMnTe quantum well. We demonstrate a striking organization and enhancement of SO fields acting on the collective spin excitation (spin-flip wave). While individual electronic SO fields have a broadly distributed momentum dependence, giving rise to D'yakonov-Perel' dephasing, the collective spin dynamics is governed by a single collective SO field which is drastically enhanced due to many-body effects. The enhancement factor is experimentally determined. These results provide a powerful indication that these constructive phenomena are universal to collective spin excitations of conducting systems.