Spin-orbit coupling effects on spin-dependent inelastic electronic lifetimes in ferromagnets

Abstract

For the 3d ferromagnets iron, cobalt and nickel we compute the spin-dependent inelastic electronic lifetimes due to carrier-carrier Coulomb interaction including spin-orbit coupling. We find that the spin-dependent density-of-states at the Fermi energy does not, in general, determine the spin dependence of the lifetimes because of the effective spin-flip transitions allowed by the spin mixing. The majority and minority electron lifetimes computed including spin-orbit coupling for these three 3-d ferromagnets do not differ by more than a factor of 2, and agree with experimental results.