Amplitude of the de Haas—van Alphen effect in mercury

Abstract

The amplitude of the de Haas-van Alphen oscillations in mercury has been studied at temperatures between 1 and 17 K and fields between 20 and 90 T. Because of the low Debye temperature of mercury, the Dingle temperature X might be expected to increase appreciably with temperature because of increased scattering of electrons by phonons. Such a temperature dependent X would also cause the appropriate logarithmic plot of amplitude against temperature to depart appreciably from linearity. Measurements of X as a function of temperature and of the temperature dependence of amplitude at a number of fields have however provided no evidence of any appreciable temperature dependence of X . This apparently paradoxical result turns out to be explicable by a recent many-body theory due to Engelsberg & Simpson of the effects of electron-phonon scattering on the de Haas-van Alphen amplitude.