Fingerprints of an Imbert-Fedorov-like effect in the tunneling transmission of Rarita-Schwinger semi-metals
Abstract
We study tunneling through a square barrier in a rotationally symmetric Rarita-Schwinger semi-metal and identify fingerprints of an Imbert-Fedorov-like effect in the tunneling transmission. The problem is intrinsically multichannel at all energies because there exist two propagating sectors with spin projections m=1/2 and m=3/2. We derive the transmission amplitudes analytically and compare the single-channel and coherent mixed-incidence cases in the two channels. Interestingly, we observe that tunneling at high energy shows a bias towards scattering into spin projection 3/2 contributions. For single-channel injection, we find that the transmission remains symmetric under a mirror transformation of the incident angle. In contrast, for the coherent superposition, we find a directional asymmetry in the transmission probability T(ky)≠ T(−ky). Importantly, this effect does not originate from an anisotropy of the dispersion. Instead, it arises from the phase structure of the multicomponent scattering states. The two spin projection sectors exhibit different scattering and barrier-propagation phases, which enter as interference terms when both channels appear as a coherent superposition. This interference term is identified as the cause of the broken mirror symmetry. We therefore discover an analog of the Imbert-Fedorov effect, at the level of interface-induced phase differences between internal wave components. Our result demonstrates that asymmetric tunneling can already occur in transport experiments, even in an idealized, isotropic multiband system, and should therefore not be automatically attributed solely to explicit band anisotropy.
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BibTeX
@misc{bouladiane2026fingerprints,
title = {{Fingerprints of an Imbert-Fedorov-like effect in the tunneling transmission of Rarita-Schwinger semi-metals}},
author = {Otman Bouladiane and Ahmed Jellal and Hocine Bahlouli and A. Al Luhaibi and Michael Vogl},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2606.23095},
eprint = {2606.23095},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.23095},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Fingerprints of an Imbert-Fedorov-like effect in the tunneling transmission of Rarita-Schwinger semi-metals
AU - Otman Bouladiane
AU - Ahmed Jellal
AU - Hocine Bahlouli
AU - A. Al Luhaibi
AU - Michael Vogl
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/13
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2606.23095
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.23095
AB - We study tunneling through a square barrier in a rotationally symmetric Rarita-Schwinger semi-metal and identify fingerprints of an Imbert-Fedorov-like effect in the tunneling transmission. The problem is intrinsically multichannel at all energies because there exist two propagating sectors with spin projections m=1/2 and m=3/2. We derive the transmission amplitudes analytically and compare the single-channel and coherent mixed-incidence cases in the two channels. Interestingly, we observe that tunneling at high energy shows a bias towards scattering into spin projection 3/2 contributions. For single-channel injection, we find that the transmission remains symmetric under a mirror transformation of the incident angle. In contrast, for the coherent superposition, we find a directional asymmetry in the transmission probability T(k_y)≠ T(−k_y). Importantly, this effect does not originate from an anisotropy of the dispersion. Instead, it arises from the phase structure of the multicomponent scattering states. The two spin projection sectors exhibit different scattering and barrier-propagation phases, which enter as interference terms when both channels appear as a coherent superposition. This interference term is identified as the cause of the broken mirror symmetry. We therefore discover an analog of the Imbert-Fedorov effect, at the level of interface-induced phase differences between internal wave components. Our result demonstrates that asymmetric tunneling can already occur in transport experiments, even in an idealized, isotropic multiband system, and should therefore not be automatically attributed solely to explicit band anisotropy.
ER -