Chiral splitting and polarization-dependent optical absorption of exciton for Rashba spin-orbit interaction

We study theoretically the effect of Rashba spin-orbit interaction (RSOI) on the chiral splitting of quasi-two-dimensional quantum well (QW) exciton. By a nonvariational method, entire energy spectrum is treated simultaneously, it does not require a great deal of insight to choose a good variational function. We show that, the coexistence of electron and hole RSOI introduces a four-energy system for both heavy-hole and light-hole exciton, the competition between them leads to an anticrossing exciton energy spectrum. We also show that the chiral splitting of energy spectrum leads to a polarization-dependent optical absorption. The results suggest a way for direct optical measurements of RSOI parameters.