Dephasing and energy relaxation of electrons by magnetic impurities in low-dimensional systems

The main objective of the project is to develop theory for calculation of dephasing due to magnetic impurities in this metallic wires. Experiments on energy relaxation in metallic wires have revealed that the electron-electron interaction is enhanced by m agnetic impurity mediated interaction. However, there is still not complete understanding of the phenomenon. We want to calculate the effect of the same magnetic impurities on the dephasing rate of the electrons. Understanding of this will make it possibl e to determine the properties of the magnetic impurities by an independent method. In addition, we want to improve the calculation of the energy relaxation in magnetic fields to include the cases where the energy is below the Kndo temperature. Because of the strong renormalization of the coupling constant, this is an interesting theoret ical problem in itself and it is important for the interpretation of experiment. Another part of the project is to calculate the energy relaxation due to two level systems (TLS) in wires and films. For this problem we have already calculated the dephasing rate, and calculation and measurement of energy relaxation will give the possibility to determine whether TLS are responsible for the observed saturation of the dephasing rate at temperatures below 1 K.