Linear and nonlinear Edelstein effects in Rashba superconductors

Abstract

We formulate a quasiclassical theory of the Edelstein effect in superconductors that incorporates both intraband and interband contributions. To describe the interband contribution, which is absent from the conventional leading-order quasiclassical formulation, we derive augmented Eilenberger equations in the presence of antisymmetric spin-orbit coupling. The intraband contribution is evaluated using multiband Eilenberger equations. We apply these formulations to supercurrent-induced surface spin magnetization in $s$-wave Rashba superconductors and investigate its dependence on temperature, distance from the surface, spin-orbit coupling strength, and supercurrent. The intraband contribution originates from a supercurrent-induced asymmetry of quasiparticles with opposite momenta and spin polarizations, whereas the interband contribution arises from the anomalous-velocity term generated by the momentum derivative of the Rashba spin-orbit potential. In the helicity basis, this anomalous-velocity term is expressed in terms of the Berry connection associated with the momentum dependence of the Rashba eigenstates. The intraband contribution increases linearly with the spin-orbit coupling strength, whereas the interband contribution exhibits a nonmonotonic dependence and is maximized when the Rashba spin splitting is comparable to the superconducting gap. Moreover, within the clean $s$-wave Rashba model considered here, we find that the nonlinear dependence of magnetization on the supercurrent arises solely from the interband contribution. Thus, although the intraband contribution dominates the linear Edelstein effect, the nonlinear Edelstein effect can serve as a useful probe of the interband contribution originating from quantum geometry.