  We study the proximity-induced superconducting correlations as well as the
local density of states of a ferromagnet, in a ferromagnet/s-wave
superconductor heterostructure. We include the effects of spin-flip scattering,
non-ideal interfaces, and the presence of impurities in the sample. We employ
the quasiclassical theory of superconductivity, solving the Usadel equation
with emphasis on obtaining transparent analytical results. As our main result,
we report that in a certain parameter regime the spatial oscillations of the
anomalous (superconducting) part of the Green's function induced in the
ferromagnet by the proximity effect from the s-wave superconductor, are damped
out due to the presence of spin-flip processes. As a consequence, spin-flip
scattering may under certain conditions actually enhance the local density of
states due to the oscillatory behaviour of the latter in
ferromagnet/superconductor structures. We also conjecture that the damping
could be manifested in the behaviour of the critical temperature ($T_c$) of the
s-wave superconductor in contact with the ferromagnet. More specifically, we
argue that the non-monotonic decrease of $T_c$ in ferromagnet/s-wave
superconductor junctions without magnetic impurities is altered to a monotonic,
non-oscillatory decrease when the condition $1>16\tau_\text{sf}^2h^2$ is
fulfilled, where $\tau_\text{sf}$ is the spin-flip relaxation time and $h$ is
the exchange field.
