RT Journal Article T1 Effective nonlinear model for electron transport in deformable helical molecules A1 Díaz García, Elena A1 Contreras, A. A1 Hernández, J. A1 Domínguez-Adame Acosta, Francisco AB The helical conformation of electric dipoles in some chiral molecules, such as DNA and bacteriorhodopsin, induces a spin-orbit coupling that results in a sizable spin selectivity of electrons. The local deformation of the molecule about the moving electron may affect the spin dynamics due to the appearance of bright solitons with well-defined spin projection onto the molecule axis. In this work, we introduce an effective model for electron transport in a deformable helical molecular lattice that resembles the nonlinear Kronig-Penney model in the adiabatic approximation. In addition, the continuum limit of our model is achieved when the dipole-dipole distance is smaller than the spatial extent of the bright soliton, as discussed by E. Diaz et al. [N. J. Phys. 20, 043055 (2018)]. In this limit, our model reduces to an extended Davydov model. Finally, we also focus on perturbations to the bright soliton that arise naturally in the context of real helical molecules. We conclude that the continuum approximation provides excellent results in more complex scenarios. PB American Physical Society SN 2470-0045 YR 2018 FD 2018-11-21 LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/12965 UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/12965 LA eng NO ©2018 American Physical Society.This work was supported by the Spanish MINECO under Grant No. MAT2016-75955. The authors are indebted to R. Gutierrez, P. G. Estévez, and P. Albares for enlightening discussions. NO Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) DS Docta Complutense RD 11 abr 2025