Anderson impurity in a helical metal

Abstract

We use a trial wave function to study the spin-1/2 Kondo effect of a helical metal on the surface of a three-dimensional topological insulator. While the impurity spin is quenched by conduction electrons, the spin-spin correlation of the conduction electron and impurity is strongly anisotropic in both spin and spatial spaces. As a result of strong spin-orbit coupling, the out-of-plane component of the impurity spin is found to be fully screened by the orbital angular momentum of the conduction electrons.