2026-07-072026-07-07http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/29538We study the problem of electronic conduction in mesoscopic systems when the electrons are allowed to interact not only with static impurities, but also with a scatterer (a phase breaker(PB)) that possesses internal degrees of freedom. We first analyze the role of the PB in reducing the coherent interference effects in a one-electron quantum-mechanical system. In the many-electron system we can make a number of quite general statements within the framework of linear-response theory and the random-phase approximation. We cannot calculate the conductivity tensor in full generality: we thus resort to a model, in which that tensor can be expressed entirely in a single-electron picture. The resulting zero-temperature conductance can be written in terms of the total transmission coefficient at the Fermi energy, containing an additional trace over the states of the PB.12 pages, 1 figure. Submitted to Phys. Rev. BMesoscale and Nanoscale PhysicsStatistical Mechanicstext