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We study the RKKY interaction mediated by the helical edge states of a quantum spin Hall insulator in the presence of the Rashba spin-orbital coupling induced by an external electric field and the electron-electron interaction. We show that in the presence of the Rashba coupling, the RKKY interaction induced by the helical edge states contains not only the Heisenberg-like and the Dzyaloshinskii-Moria terms, but also the nematic-type term that is not present in the absence of the Rashba coupling. Moreover, the range functions depend on the strength of the Rashba coupling. We also show that the electron-electron interaction changes the strength of the RKKY interaction by modifying the power of the 1//x/ dependence of the range functions. In particular, by varying the strength of the interaction or the Rashba coupling, there is an (impurity) quantum phase transition involving the sign change of the RKKY interaction at the value of the Luttinger liquid parameter K=1/2. Since both the strength of the Rashba coupling and the chemical potential of the helical edge states are electrically controllable by external gate voltages, our results not only shed light on the nature of magnetic impurity correlations in the edge of a two-dimensional topological insulator, but also pave a way to manipulate the qubits in quantum computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the quantum point contact between the topological superconductor and the helical Luttinger liquid. The effects of the electron-electron interactions in the helical Luttinger liquid on the low-energy physics of this system are analyzed by the renormalization group. Among the various couplings at the point contact which arises from the tunneling via the Majorana edge channel, the induced backscattering in the helical Luttinger liquid is the most relevant for repulsive interactions. Hence, at low temperatures, the helical Luttinger liquid is effectively cut into two separated half wires. As a result, the low-temperature physics is described by a fixed point consisting of two leads coupled to the topological superconductor, and the electrical transport properties through the point contact at low temperature and low bias are dominated by the tunneling via the Majorana edge channel. We compute the temperature dependence of the zero-bias tunneling conductance and study the full counting statistics for the tunneling current at zero temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study a quantum dot coupled to two edge states of a quantum spin Hall insulator through electron tunnelings in the presence of a Rashba spin-orbital interaction induced by an external electric field. We show that if the electron interactions on the edge states are repulsive, there are two possible phases, depending on the Luttinger liquid parameter K. For 1/2

We investigate theoretically the nonequilibrium finite-frequency current noise in a four-terminal quantum point contact of interacting helical edge states at a finite bias voltage. Special focus is put on the effects of the single-particle and two-particle scattering between the two helical edge states on the fractional charge quasiparticle excitations shown in the nonequilibrium current noise spectra. Via the Keldysh perturbative approach, we find that the effects of the single-particle and the two-particle scattering processes on the current noise depend sensitively on the Luttinger liquid parameter. Moreover, the Fano factors for the auto- and cross correlations of the currents in the terminals are distinct from the ones for tunneling between the chiral edge states in the quantum Hall liquid. The current noise spectra in the single-particle-scattering-dominated and the two-particle-scattering-dominated regime are shown. Experimental implications of our results on the transport through the helical edges in two-dimensional topological insulators are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BiTeI exhibits large Rashba spin splitting due to its noncentrosymmetric crystal structure. The study of the chemical doping effect is important in order to either tune the Fermi level or refine the crystal quality. Here, we report the magnetotransport measurement in high quality BiTeI single crystals with different copper dopings. We found that a small amount of copper doping improves the crystal quality significantly, which is supported by the transport data showing higher Hall mobility and larger amplitude in Shubnikov-de Haas oscillation at low temperature. Two distinct frequencies in Shubnikov-de Haas oscillation were observed, giving extremal Fermi surface areas of AS=9.1×1012 cm-2 and AL=3.47×1014 cm-2 with corresponding cyclotron masses mS*=0.0353me and mL*=0.178me, respectively. Those results are further compared with relativistic band structure calculations using three reported Te and I positions. Our analysis infers the crucial role of Bi-Te bond length in the observed large bulk Rashba-type spin-splitting effect in BiTeI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]