Sum rules for spin Hall conductivity cancellation

Abstract

It has been shown recently that the universal dc spin conductivity of two-dimensional electrons with a Rashba spin-orbit interaction is canceled by vertex corrections in a weak scattering regime. We prove that the zero bulk spin conductivity is an intrinsic property of the free-electron Hamiltonian and scattering is merely a tool to reveal this property in terms of the diagrammatic technique. When Zeeman energy is neglected, the zero dc conductivity persists in a magnetic field. Spin conductivity increases resonantly at the cyclotron frequency and then decays towards the universal value.