Spin-wave-induced correction to the conductivity of ferromagnets

Abstract

We calculate the correction to the conductivity of a disordered ferromagnetic metal due to spin-wave-mediated electron--electron interactions. This correction is the generalization of the Altshuler-Aronov correction to spin-wave-mediated interactions. We derive a general expression for the conductivity correction to lowest order in the spin-wave-mediated interaction and for the limit that the exchange splitting $\Delta$ is much smaller than the Fermi energy. For a "clean" ferromagnet with $\Delta {\tau }_{\mathrm{el}}/\hslash \gg 1$, with ${\tau }_{\mathrm{el}}$ the mean time for impurity scattering, we find a correction $\delta \sigma \propto -T^{5/2}$ at temperatures $T$ above the spin wave gap. In the opposite, "dirty" limit, $\Delta {\tau }_{\mathrm{el}}/\hslash \ll 1$, the correction is a non-monotonous function of temperature.

9 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Quantum transport in ferromagnetic Permalloy nanostructures