  We study the relaxation dynamics of non-equilibrium chirality distributions
of charge carriers in Rashba systems. We find that at low temperature
inter-Rashba band transitions become suppressed due to the combined effect of
the Rashba momentum split and the chiral spin texture of a Rashba system.
Specifically, we show that momentum exchange between carriers and the phonon
bath is effectively absent at temperatures where the momentum of thermal
phonons is less than twice the Rashba momentum. This allows us to identify
inter-carrier scattering as the dominant process by which non-equilibrium
chirality distributions relax. We show that the magnitude of inter-carrier
scattering is strongly influenced by the opposing spin structure of the Rashba
bands. Finally, we provide an explicit result for the inter-band relaxation
timescale associated with inter-carrier Coulomb scattering. We develop a
general framework and assess its implications for GeTe, a bulk Rashba
semiconductor with a strong Rashba momentum split.

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics