Indirect exchange interaction between magnetic impurities in one-dimensional gapped helical states

Abstract: We investigate theoretically indirect exchange interaction between magnetic impurities mediated by one-dimensional gapped helical states. Such states, containing massive Dirac fermions, may be realized on the edge of a two-dimensional topological insulator when time-reversal symmetry is weakly broken. We find that the indirect exchange interaction consists of Heisenberg, Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya, in-plane and out-of-plane Ising terms. These terms decay exponentially when Fermi level lies inside the bandgap whereas the Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya term has smallest amplitude. Outside the energy gap the massive helical states modify oscillatory behaviors of the range functions so that their periods decrease near the edge of band in terms of energy gap or Fermi energy. In addition, the out-of-plane Ising term vanishes in the case of zero-gap structure but its oscillation amplitude increases versus energy gap and decreases as a function of Fermi energy whereas the oscillation amplitudes of other components remain constant. Analytical results are also obtained for subgap and over gap regimes. Furthermore, the effects of electron-electron interactions are analyzed.