Relativistic effects in scattering of polarized electrons

Sushkov, O. P.*; Milstein, A. I.*; Mori, Michiyasu  ; Maekawa, Sadamichi

The right-left asymmetry (skew scattering) and the side jump effect are manifestations of the spin-orbit interaction in scattering of polarized electrons. While the side jump effect is less known than the right-left asymmetry, the effect is of conceptual importance for generic spin-orbital physics, and the effect is widely discussed in spintronics. We reexamine the side jump effect accounting for the exact nonperturbative electron wave function inside the atom/impurity/host atomic core. We find that the size of the effect is much smaller than estimates accepted in the literature. The reduction factor is 1/, where is the nuclear charge. This implies that the side jump effect is practically irrelevant, the skew scattering and/or the intrinsic mechanism always dominate the transverse deflection of the electron beam and hence dominate the anomalous Hall and spin Hall effects.