Enhancement of the phonon heat capacity in metals at low temperature

M. Danino, A. W. Overhauser

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Scopus citations

Abstract

Landau damping of each phonon mode causes its spectral density to acquire a low-frequency tail proportional to 2. Consequently the T3 low-temperature heat capacity arising from acoustic modes, with a frequency spectrum proportional to 2, is supplemented by the spectral-density tails from all modes in the Brillouin zone. This extra term is proportional to T3ln(T) and is a few percent of the Debye term at 1 K. In metals with large electron-phonon interaction e.g., superconductors the extra term will be larger, and will be present only in the normal state. A lower T3 coefficient should occur in the superconducting state, a phenomenon reported experimentally for indium 20 years ago, since the spectral-density tail falls to zero for frequencies below the energy gap.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1569-1573
Number of pages5
JournalPhysical Review B
Volume26
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 1982
Externally publishedYes

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