Van Hove scenario of anisotropic transport in a two-dimensional spin-orbit coupled electron gas in an in-plane magnetic field

Abstract

We study electronic transport in two-dimensional spin-orbit coupled electron gas subjected to an in-plane magnetic field. The interplay of the spin-orbit interaction and the magnetic field leads to the Van Hove singularity of the density of states and strong anisotropy of Fermi contours. We develop a method that allows one to exactly calculate the nonequilibrium distribution function for these conditions within the framework of the semiclassical Boltzmann equation without using the scattering time approximation. The method is applied to calculate the conductivity tensor and the tensor of spin polarization induced by the electric field (Aronov-Lyanda-Geller-Edelstein effect). It is found that both the conductivity and the spin polarization have a sharp singularity as functions of the Fermi level or magnetic field, which occurs when the Fermi level passes through the Van Hove singularity. In addition, the transport anisotropy dramatically changes near the singularity.