THE EFFECT OF AN ENERGY-DEPENDENT RELAXATION TIME ON THE MAGNETIC PROPERTIES OF CONDUCTION ELECTRONS

It is shown that a conduction-electron relaxation time, τ, which is sharply energy-dependent near the Fermi energy, such that τ = τ0 everywhere except when [Formula: see text] where τ is assumed to be zero, will have a negligible effect on the electronic diamagnetism for all temperatures less than the degeneracy temperature of the electrons. This anomalous relaxation time is also shown to induce temperature-dependent reduction in the spin paramagnetism which becomes of the same order as the spin paramagnetism at liquid-helium temperatures. However, alloys in which the anomalous relaxation might be expected to exist exhibit a Curie paramagnetism. The net effect of the anomalous relaxation time is to reduce the observed susceptibility of the alloy by about 1% at liquid-helium temperatures.