Smearing of the two-dimensional Kohn anomaly in a nonquantizing magnetic field: implications for interaction effects

Thermodynamic and transport characteristics of a clean two-dimensional interacting electron gas are shown to be sensitive to the weak perpendicular magnetic field even at temperatures much higher than the cyclotron energy, when the quantum oscillations are completely washed out. We demonstrate this sensitivity for two interaction-related characteristics: electron lifetime and the tunnel density of states. The origin of the sensitivity is traced to the field-induced smearing of the Kohn anomaly; this smearing is the result of curving of the semiclassical electron trajectories in magnetic field.