Interaction-induced dephasing of Aharonov-Bohm oscillations

We study the effect of the electron-electron interaction on the amplitude of mesoscopic Aharonov-Bohm oscillations in quasi-one-dimensional (Q1D) diffusive rings. We show that the dephasing length $L_{\phi }^{\mathrm{AB}}$ governing the damping factor $\exp \left(-2\pi {R/L}_{\phi }^{\mathrm{AB}}\right)$ of the oscillations is parametrically different from the common dephasing length for the Q1D geometry. This is due to the fact that the dephasing is governed by energy transfers determined by the ring circumference $2\pi R,$ making $L_{\phi }^{\mathrm{AB}}$ R-dependent.