Unified quaternionic description of charge and spin transport and intrinsic non-linearity of spin currents

T. P. Pareek

Published 2010-02-21, updated 2010-03-03Version 2

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.