  A microscopic picture of electron-electron pair scattering in single mode
quantum wires is introduced which includes electron spin. A new source of
`excess' noise for hot carriers is presented. We show that zero magnetic field
`spin' splitting in quantum wires can lead to a dramatic `spin'-subband
dependence of electron--electron scattering, including the possibility of
strong suppression. As a consequence extremely long electron coherence lengths
and new spin-related phenomena are predicted. Since electron bands in III-V
semiconductor quantum wires are in general spin-split in zero applied magnetic
field, these new transport effects are of general importance.
