TRIPLE-ELECTRON COLLISIONS IN A QUANTUM-WIRE

The effect of intra-subband triple-electron collisions on the kinetics of a nondegenerate one-dimensional electron gas (1DEG) is investigated since binary collisions give zero contribution to the relaxation. The scattering probabilities are derived from the Lippmann-Schwinger equation for the transition matrix. The corresponding relaxation frequency is of the order of eta n upsilon(T) min[1, (e(2)/epsilon(L)h upsilon(T))(3)], where eta = e(2)n/epsilon(L)T is the plasma parameter, n, T, and upsilon(T) are the concentration, temperature, and thermal velocity of the 1DEG, respectively, and epsilon(L) is the dielectric constant. The relaxation frequency can reach a value of 10(12)/s, comparable to that by other scattering mechanisms, and indicates the importance of the effect for the relaxation of a 1DEG.