Coulomb blockade microscopy of spin-density oscillations and fractional charge in quantum spin Hall dots

We evaluate the spin-density oscillations arising in quantum spin Hall quantum dots created via two localized magnetic barriers. The combined presence of magnetic barriers and spin-momentum locking, the hallmark of topological insulators, leads to peculiar phenomena: A half-integer charge is trapped in the dot for antiparallel magnetization of the barriers, and oscillations appear in the in-plane spin density, which are enhanced in the presence of electron interactions. Furthermore, we show that the number of these oscillations is determined by the number of particles inside the dot so that the presence or absence of the fractional charge can be deduced from the in-plane spin density. We show that, when the dot is coupled with a magnetized tip, the spatial shift induced in the chemical potential allows for probing these peculiar features. © 2013 American Physical Society.