Muon depolarization in bismuth at high applied fields: possible effects of electron orbital diamagnetism

The relaxation rate σ was measured in single crystal Bi at T ∼ K for H=1-3 T. To explain the unsaturated increase of σ with H, an electronic mechanism is proposed, based on the predicted large scale fluctuations of the local field in the quantum limit, with all electrons in Landau orbitals with the lowest energy. This seems to be consistent also with earlier data on the orientation dependence of σ at high fields