A quantum field theory of thermal conductivity and specific heat in the low temperature glasses

In the low temperature regime, the scattering process due to random eigenfrequencies plays an essential role in thermal conductivity and specific heat through the relaxation times. The thermal conductivity obeys a square dependence of the temperature due to the relaxation time of phonon density fluctuations with an inverse temperature. The specific heat obeys a linear dependence of the temperature due to the intraband excitations in addition to a cubic dependence due to phonons; the bandwidth is nearly equal to the inverse relaxation time of atoms from the uncertainty principle. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.