Quantum correction to the orbital Hall effect

The orbital Hall effect (OHE) typically is evaluated using an intuitive approach based on semiclassical considerations. Here we provide a full quantum mechanical evaluation of the orbital current, including all matrix elements of the position operator. We recover previous results and find an additional quantum correction due to the non-commutativity of the position and velocity operators. We evaluate the full OHE for the topological antiferromagnet CuMnAs showing that the quantum correction dominates the response and changes its sign. We discuss implications for experiment.
Comment: Submitted to Phys.Rev.Lett