2010/02/21 by T. P. Pareek, Pareek, T. P.
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1002.3961
Typos corrected, One more equation and discusson added
openalex publication_date 2010/02/21 · arxiv created 2010/03/03 · arxiv updated 2010/03/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We present a unified theory of charge and spin transport using quaternionic formalism. It is shown that both charge current and spin currents can be combined together to form a quaternionic current. The scalar and vector part of quaternionic currents correspond to charge and spin current respectively. We formulate a unitarity condition on the scattering matrix for quaternionic current conservation. It is shown that in presence of spin flip interactions a weaker quaternionic unitarity condition implying charge flux conservation but spin flux non conservation is valid. Using this unified theory we find that spin currents are intrinsically non linear. Its implication for recent experimental observation of spin generation far away from the boundaries are discussed.