Spin Dynamics of a Fermi Liquid in an Electric Field

Abstract

The influence of an external electric field on the spin dynamics of an electrically neutral Fermi liquid is considered, the mechanism of such an influence being the relativistic spin-orbital interaction. As a result, Leggett's equations for the spin dynamics of weakly polarized Fermi liquids are generalized to the case of non-zero external electric field. In addition, we obtained the transverse spin dynamics equation for strongly spin-polarized liquids in an electric field at zero temperature. In both situations covariant derivatives depending on the electric field are shown to be substituted for spatial gradients in line with the SU(2) gauge invariance of the microscopic Hamiltonian. The new equations are applied to the study of spin flow along a channel, where an electric field is found to bring about an additional phase shift of the order of magnitude of the phase shift in superfluid $^3$He-$B$ but growing with time.