Skyrmionic like spin-texture of Rashba electron scattering at magnetic adatoms deposited on the Au(111) surface*

Surfaces are an inversion asymmetric environment. In combination with the spin-orbit interaction, surface electrons experience a Rashba effect, which leads to spin-split surface states [1]. Having an adatom on such a surface, surface states scatter at it. Interferences are created from which, surprisingly, the fingerprints of spin-orbit coupling cannot be seen with a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) [2]. Instead of a single adatom, Walls and Heller [3] proposed to use a corral of atoms to create extra spin-orbit coupling related modulations in the charge density. Resting on multiple scattering theory, we propose to visualize such effects using a spin-polarized STM considering either a single magnetic adatom or a corral of magnetic adatoms.\\[4pt] [1] S.~Lashell, B.A.~McDougall, E.~Jensen, Phys.\ Rev.\ Lett.{\bf 77}, 3419 (1996).\\[0pt] [2] L.~Petersen and P.~Hedeg\aa rd, Surf.\ Sci.\ {\bf 49}, 459 (2000).\\[0pt] [3] J.D.~Walls and E.J.~Heller, Nano Letters {\bf 7}, 3377 (2007).