Theory of spin waves in diluted-magnetic-semiconductor quantum wells

We present a theory of collective spin excitations in diluted-magnetic-semiconductor quantum wells in which local magnetic moments are coupled via a quasi-two-dimensional gas of electrons or holes. In the case of a ferromagnetic state with partly spin-polarized electrons, we find that the Goldstone collective mode has anomalous k⁴ dispersion and that for symmetric quantum wells odd parity modes do not disperse at all. We discuss the gap in the collective excitation spectrum which appears when spin-orbit interactions are included.