Spin relaxation in quantum Hall systems

Abstract

We study the spin relaxation in an interacting two--dimensional electron gas in a strong magnetic field for the case that the electron density is close to filling just one Landau sub--level of one spin projection, i.e., for filling factor near one. Assuming the relaxation to be caused by scattering with phonons, we derive the kinetic equations for the electron's spin--density which replace the Bloch equations in our case. These equations are non--linear and their solution depends crucially on the filling factor and on the temperature of the phonon bath. In the limit of zero temperature and for filling factor 1, the solution relaxes asymptotically with a power law inversely proportional to time, instead of following the conventional exponential behavior.