Absence of electron dephasing at zero temperature

T. R. Kirkpatrick, D. Belitz

Published 2001-11-21, updated 2003-07-17Version 2

Dephasing of electrons due to the electron-electron interaction has recently been the subject of a controversial debate, with different calculations yielding mutually incompatible results. In this paper we prove, by means of Ward identities, that neither a Coulomb interaction nor a short-ranged model interaction can lead to phase breaking at zero temperature in spatial dimensions d>2.