Persistent currents induced by spin-orbit coupling in one-dimensional mesoscopic rings

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Abstract
The effect of spin-orbit (SO) coupling of the electrons moving in a nonsymmetrical confining potential on the persistent currents in one-dimensional mesoscopic rings is investigated. Our results show that a momentum-dependent effective magnetic field could be induced by the spin-orbit coupling. This leads to a persistent-current contribution. The direction and the amplitude of this current depend on the parameters of SO coupling. An interesting result is that the dependence of this current on the coupling parameters has the steplike characteristics. The condition of adiabatic approximation is also discussed.