Divergence of the orbital nuclear magnetic relaxation rate in metals

Abstract

We analyze the nuclear magnetic relaxation rate $(1/T_1{)}_{orb}$ due to the coupling of nuclear spin to the orbital moment of itinerant electrons in metals. In the clean non--interacting case, contributions from large--distance current fluctuations add up to cause a divergence of $(1/T_1{)}_{orb}$. When impurity scattering is present, the elastic mean free time $\tau$ cuts off the divergence, and the magnitude of the effect at low temperatures is controlled by the parameter $\ln (\mu \tau )$, where $\mu$ is the chemical potential. The spin--dipolar hyperfine coupling, while has the same spatial variation $1/r^3$ as the orbital hyperfine coupling, does not produce a divergence in the nuclear magnetic relaxation rate.

11pages; v4: The analysis of the normal state is more compelete now, including a comparison with other hyperfine interactions and a detailed discussion of the effect in representative metals. The superconducting state is excluded from consideration in this paper

References in corpus (2)

• First-principles calculations of spin-orbit effects and NMR in Sr2RuO4
• NMR relaxation time in a clean two-band superconductor

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