GW+T theory of excited electron lifetimes in metals -: art. no. 155109

We develop a first-principle GW+T approach to calculate excited electron lifetimes in metals that includes evaluation of the lowest self-energy term of the many-body perturbation theory in GW approximation and higher terms in the T-matrix approximation. The method is applied to studies of the electron lifetimes in Pd, Ta, and Al. We find that the T-matrix contribution to the lifetime is more important in Al than in Ta and Pd and relate this to the static screened potential. The inclusion of the T-matrix greatly improves agreement between experimental and theoretical results in Ta and Al.