Abstract
We develop a transfer matrix method and calculate the magneto-conductance of a cylindrical wire in a longitudinal magnetic field for a wide range of magnetic fields and phase breaking times. The transfer matrix method is compared with the results of Al'tshuler et al, which were obtained by using the perturbation method. Good agreement is found in the limit where the magnetic field is weak and the phase breaking length is much greater than the wire dimensions. Generally, our study shows, in the case of a wire, that perturbation theory works well, and that it only overestimates magneto-conductance a little, or that, in terms of data analysis, the value of the phase breaking time fitted from the measured magneto-conductance using perturbation theory tends to be a slight underestimate. The method developed here is also applicable to the problem of the Aharonov-Bohm effect in a disordered metal ring. © 2008 IOP Publishing Ltd.