Spin-orbit coupling and semiclassical electron dynamics in noncentrosymmetric metals

Spin-orbit coupling of electrons with the crystal lattice plays a crucial role in materials without inversion symmetry, lifting spin degeneracy of the Bloch states and endowing the resulting nondegenerate bands with complex spin textures and topologically nontrivial wavefunctions. We present a detailed symmetry-based analysis of the spin-orbit Coupling and the band degeneracies in noncentrosymmetric metals. We systematically derive the semiclassical equations of motion for fermionic quasiparticles near the Fermi surface, taking into account both the spin-orbit coupling and the Zeeman interaction with an applied magnetic field. Some of the lowest-order quantum corrections to the equations of motions can be expressed in terms of a fictitious magnetic field in the momentum space, which is related to the Berry curvature of the band wavefunctions. The band degeneracy points or lines serve as sources of a topologically nontrivial Berry curvature. We discuss the observable effects of the wavefunction topology, focusing, in particular, on the modifications to the Lifshitz-Onsager semiclassical quantization condition and the de Haas-van Alphen effect in noncentrosymmetric metals. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.