  By means of time-resolved optical orientation under strong optical pumping,
the k-dependence of the electron spin-flip time (t_sf) in undoped GaAs is
experimentally determined. t_sf monotonically decreases by more than one order
of magnitude when the electron kinetic energy varies from 2 to 30 meV. At the
high excitation densities and low temperatures of the reported experiments the
main spin-flip mechanism of the conduction band electrons is the
Bir-Aronov-Pikus. By means of Monte-Carlo simulations we evidence that
phase-space filling effects result in the blocking of the spin flip, yielding
an increase of t_sf with excitation density. These effects obtain values of
t_sf up to 30 ns at k=0, the longest reported spin-relaxation time in undoped
GaAs in the absence of a magnetic field.
