  We study the influence of collective magnetic excitations on the interlayer
exchange coupling (IEC) in metallic multilayers. The results are compared to
other models that explain the temperature dependence of the IEC by mechanisms
within the spacer or at the interfaces of the multilayers. As a main result we
find that the reduction of the IEC with temperature shows practically the same
functional dendence in all models. On the other hand the influence of the
spacer thickness, the magnetic material, and an external field are quite
different. Based on these considerations we propose experiments, that are able
to determine the dominating mechanism that reduces the IEC at finite
temperatures.
