We study spin-orbit mediated relaxation and dephasing of electron spins in quantum dots. We show that higher order contributions provide a relaxation mechanism that dominates for low magnetic fields and is of geometrical origin. In the low-field limit relaxation is dominated by coupling to electron-hole excitations and possibly 1/f noise rather than phonons.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0603847,
title = {Geometrical spin dephasing in quantum dots},
author = {Pablo San-Jose and Gergely Zarand and Alexander Shnirman and Gerd Schön},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0603847},
year = {2007}
}