Solitons in a nonlinear model of spin transport in helical molecules

Phys Rev E. 2018 Feb;97(2-1):022210. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.97.022210.

Abstract

We study an effective integrable nonlinear model describing an electron moving along the axis of a deformable helical molecule. The helical conformation of dipoles in the molecular backbone induces an unconventional Rashba-like interaction that couples the electron spin with its linear momentum. In addition, a focusing nonlinearity arises from the electron-lattice interaction, enabling the formation of a variety of stable solitons such as bright solitons, breathers, and rogue waves. A thorough study of the soliton solutions for both focusing and defocusing nonlinear interaction is presented and discussed.