title: Spin splitting induced by spin-orbit interaction in chiral nanotubes.
abstract: We show that chiral tubes present spin splitting at the Fermi level in the absence of a magnetic field, whereas achiral tubes preserve spin degeneracy, as evidenced by tight-binding electronic structure calculations with the inclusion of spin-orbit interaction. These remarkably different behaviors of chiral and nonchiral nanotubes have a symmetry origin, which may provide a global explanation to recently reported spin-dependent transport experiments which were in apparent contradiction.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Física Aplicada, Facultad de Ciencias del Medio Ambiente, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 45071 Toledo, Spain.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chico
authors.forename: M P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: López-Sancho
authors.forename: M C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Muñoz