Repulsive atomic Fermi gas with Rashba spin-orbit coupling: A quantum Monte Carlo study

Thanks to the recent experimental realization and control of artificial gauge fields, spin-orbit (SO) couplings are witnessing an ever increasing interest in the field of cold atoms. However, predicting their effect on spin polarization and energetic properties of interacting systems is a major challenge, due to the complex interplay between spin and position dynamics. In this work we exploit the diffusion Monte Carlo algorithm to compute energetic and polarization properties of a three-dimensional repulsive Fermi gas in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit coupling. We find that SO effects tend to contrast the spin alignment induced by the exchange interaction, slightly shifting the onset of the Stoner instability towards larger values of the scattering length. In addition, polarization and energy properties of the system can be tuned trough a combined control of the repulsive interaction and Rashba coupling.