Muon spin relaxation by electronic excitations moving in one dimension

The manner in which an electronic spin, executing a linear random walk, e.g. along a polymer chain, depolarizes a muon (or proton) probe spin, is investigated by computer simulation. The essential features of the model are the assumptions of a contact hyperfine interaction with limited range and of loss of coherence between successive encounters. The low dimensionality of the motion is reflected in the shape of the relaxation functions generated, which depart significantly from simple exponentials. Fits to various functional forms are examined for different combinations of hop rate and chain length, hyperfine constant and applied magnetic field. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.