Reply to a Comment on "Quantum Decoherence in Disordered Mesoscopic Systems" (cond-mat/9808078, cond-mat/9808053)

TL;DR

This paper defends a path integral analysis of quantum decoherence in disordered mesoscopic systems, clarifying its consistency with prior perturbative results and extending beyond Golden-rule approximations to resolve discrepancies.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the path integral method reproduces perturbative results and extends analysis beyond Golden-rule theory, addressing critiques and differences with prior work.

Findings

Path integral analysis matches perturbative results.

Extended analysis beyond Golden-rule theory.

Clarified differences with previous experimental interpretations.

Abstract

We reply to the critique of our results raised by Aleiner, Altshuler and Gershenzon (AAG) in cond-mat/9808078 and cond-mat/9808053. We demonstrate that our path integral analysis fully reproduces the results of AAG if analyzed on a perturbative level. This should settle the issue of "missing diagrams" in our calculation. We, furthermore, demonstrate that our approach allows us to proceed beyond the Golden-rule-type perturbation theory employed by AAG. This explains the difference between our and AAG's results. We also comment on the comparison of our results with the experiments presented by AAG.