Evidence for correlated states in a cluster of bosons with Rashba spin-orbit coupling

Abstract

We study the ground state properties of spin-half bosons subjected to the Rashba spin-orbit coupling in two dimensions. Due to the enhancement of the low energy density of states, it is expected that the effect of interaction becomes more important. After reviewing several possible ideal condensed states, we carry out an exact diagonalization calculation for a cluster of the bosons in the presence of strong spin-orbit coupling on a two-dimensional disk and reveal strong correlations in its ground state. We derive a low-energy effective Hamiltonian to understand how states with strong correlations become energetically more favorable than the ideal condensed states.