Effects of electron correlations, dynamical screening and plasmon excitations on muon diffusion in metals

Abstract

An investigation is made of the effects of electron-electron interaction on muon diffusion in metals. It is shown that electron-electron correlation plays an important role in the motion of muons. The equation-of-motion method is used to calculate the correlation function. It is shown that electron correlations effectively reduce the muon hopping rate at low temperatures. It is also shown that the effect of dynamic screening increases the hopping rate. We found that due to plasmon excitation, the hopping rate is reduced by a factor which can be as larger as one to two orders of magnitude.