Low-Temperature Dephasing in Disordered Conductors: the Effect of ``1/f'' Fluctuations

Yoseph Imry, Hidetoshi Fukuyama, Peter Schwab

Published 1999-03-01Version 1

Electronic quantum effects in disordered conductors are controlled by the dephasing rate of conduction electrons. This rate is expected to vanish with the temperature. We consider the very intriguing recently reported apparent saturation of this dephasing rate in several systems at very low temperatures. We show that the ``standard model'' of a conductor with static defects can {\em not} have such an effect. However, allowing some dynamics of the defects may produce it.