Persistent Currents in Mesoscopic Hubbard Rings with Spin-Orbit Interaction

The effect of spin-orbit interaction on persistent currents in mesoscopic Hubbard rings threaded by an Aharonov-Bohm flux is investigated putting stress on the orbital magnetism. The non-perturbative treatment of the spin-orbit interaction developed by Meir {\em et al.} is combined with the Bethe ansatz solution to deal with this problem exactly. We find that the interplay of spin-orbit interaction and electron-electron interaction plays a crucial role, bringing about some new effects on the orbital magnetism.