Zhang, Shang-ShunLiu, Wu-MingPu, Han2017-05-032017-05-032016Zhang, Shang-Shun, Liu, Wu-Ming and Pu, Han. "Itinerant chiral ferromagnetism in a trapped Rashba spin-orbit-coupled Fermi gas." <i>Physical Review A,</i> 93, no. 4 (2016) American Physical Society: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.93.043602.https://hdl.handle.net/1911/94156We consider a repulsive two-component Fermi gas confined in a two-dimensional isotropic harmonic potential and subject to a large Rashba spin-orbit coupling. The single-particle dispersion can be tailored by the spin-orbit-coupling term, which provides an opportunity to study itinerant ferromagnetism in this system. We show that the interplay among spin-orbit coupling, correlation effect, and mean-field repulsion leads to a competition between ferromagnetic and nonmagnetic phases. The weakly correlated nonmagnetic and the ferromagnetic phases can be well described by the mean-field Hartree-Fock theory, while the transition between the ferromagnetic and a strongly correlated nonmagnetic phase is driven by beyond-mean-field quantum correlation effect. Furthermore, the ferromagnetic phase of this system possesses a chiral current density induced by the Rashba spin-orbit coupling, whose experimental signature is investigated.engArticle is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.Journal articlehttps://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.93.043602