We study the spectral properties of the one-dimensional Kondo lattice model as function of the exchange coupling, the band filling, and the quasimomentum in the ferromagnetic and paramagnetic phase. Using the density-matrix renormalization group method, we compute the dispersion relation of the quasiparticles, their lifetimes, and the Z-factor. As a main result, we provide evidence for the existence of the spinpolaron at partial band fillings. We find that the quasiparticle lifetime differs by orders of magnitude between the ferromagnetic and paramagnetic phase and depends strongly on the quasimomentum.
The large-degeneracy expansion for dilute magnetic alloys is extended to account for conduction electrons interactions. Particular attention is paid to the renormalization of the hybridization vertex which affects the low-energy excitations. As a first example, we calculate the enhanced characteristic energy $k_BT_0$ in the limit of weakly correlated conduction electrons. The metallic regime with strongly correlated electrons is discussed.
A fascinating type of symmetry-protected topological states of matter are topological Kondo insulators, where insulating behavior arises from Kondo screening of localized moments via conduction electrons, and non-trivial topology emerges from the structure of the hybridization between the local-moment and conduction bands. Here we study the physics of Kondo holes, i.e., missing local moments, in three-dimensional topological Kondo insulators, using a self-consistent real-space mean-field theory. Such Kondo holes quite generically induce in-gap states which, for Kondo holes at or near the surfa…
We present a mechanism of resistivity minimum in conduction electron systems coupled with localized moments, which is distinguished from the Kondo effect. Instead of the spin-flip process in the Kondo effect, electrons are elastically scattered by local spin correlations which evolve in a particular way under geometrical frustration as decreasing temperature. This is demonstrated by the cellular dynamical mean-field theory for a spin-ice type Kondo lattice model on a pyrochlore lattice. Peculiar temperature dependences of the resistivity, specific heat, and magnetic susceptibility in the non-K…
A spin-1/2 magnetic impurity coupled to a one-dimensional correlated electron system have been studied by applying the density renormalization group method. The Kondo temperature is substantially enhanced by strong repulsive interactions in the chain, but changes non-monotonically in the case of electron attraction. The magnetization of the impurity at zero- temperature shows local Fermi liquid behavior.
We study spectral properties of quasiparticles in the Kondo lattice model in one and two dimensions including the coherent quasiparticle dispersions, their spectral weights and the full two-quasiparticle spectrum using a cluster expansion scheme. We investigate the evolution of the quasiparticle band as antiferromagnetic correlations are enhanced towards the RKKY limit of the model. In both the 1D and the 2D model we find that a repulsive interaction between quasiparticles results in a distinct antibound state above the two-quasiparticle continuum. The repulsive interaction is correlated with …
We study the low-temperature behavior of a magnetic impurity which is weakly coupled to correlated conduction electrons. To account for conduction electron interactions a diagrammatic approach in the frame of the 1/N expansion is developed. The method allows us to study various consequences of the conduction electron correlations for the ground state and the low-energy excitations. We analyse the characteristic energy scale in the limit of weak conduction electron interactions. Results are reported for static properties (impurity valence, charge susceptibility, magnetic susceptibility, and spe…
A formulation of the Kondo lattice Hamiltonian in terms of bond particles is derived and solved in two different approximations. The bond particles correspond to the eigenstates of a single unit cell and are bosons for states with even electron number and fermions for states with an odd electron number. A s a check various physical quantities are calculated for the 1D Kondo insulator a nd good agreement with numerical results is obtained for J/t>1.
We study the quasiparticle spectrum in an underscreened Kondo-lattice (KL) model that involves a single spin degenerate conduction band and two crystalline-electric-field (CEF) split Kramers doublets coupled by both orbital-diagonal and non-diagonal exchange interactions. We find the three quasiparticle bands of the model using a constrained fermionic mean field approach. While two bands are similar to the one-orbital model a new genuinely heavy band inside the main hybridization gap appears in the quasiquartet model. Its dispersion is due to effective hybridization with conduction states but …
An impurity four-level Kondo model, in which an ion is tunneling among 4-stable points and interacting with surrounding conduction electrons, is investigated using both perturbative and numerical renormalization group methods. The results of numerical renormalization group studies show that it is possible to construct the ground state wavefunction including the excited ion states if we take into account the interaction between the conduction electrons and the ion. The resultant effective mass of quasiparticles is moderately enhanced. This result offers a good explanation for the enhanced and m…
Novel electronic order is found theoretically for a system where even number of localized electrons per site are coupled with conduction electrons. For precise quantitative study, a variant of the Kondo lattice model is taken with crystalline electric field (CEF) singlet and triplet states for each site. Using the dynamical mean-field theory combined with the continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo method, a staggered order with alternating Kondo and CEF singlets is identified for a case with one conduction electron per site being distributed in two conduction bands each of which is quarter-filled…
The Kondo insulator SmB$_6$ has long been known to display anomalous transport behavior at low temperatures, T$<5$ K. In this temperatures range, a plateau is observed in the dc resistivity, contrary to the exponential divergence expected for a gapped system. Recent theoretical calculations suggest that SmB$_6$ may be the first topological Kondo insulator (TKI) and propose that the residual conductivity is due to topological surface states which reside within the Kondo gap. Since the TKI prediction many experiments have claimed to observe high mobility surface states within a perfectly insulat…
We analyze the quantum entanglement between opposite spin projection electrons in the ground state of the Anderson impurity model. In this model, a single level impurity with intralevel repulsion U is tunnel coupled to a free electron gas. The Anderson model presents a strongly correlated many body ground state with mass enhanced quasiparticle excitations. We find, using both analytical and numerical tools, that the quantum entanglement between opposite spin projection electrons is a monotonic universal function of the quasiparticle mass enhancement Z. The mass enhancement, which is used to qu…
A new ``Dynamical Mean-field theory'' based approach for the Kondo lattice model with quantum spins is introduced. The inspection of exactly solvable limiting cases and several known approximation methods, namely the second-order perturbation theory, the self-consistent CPA and finally a moment-conserving decoupling of the equations of motion help in evaluating the new approach. This comprehensive investigation gives some certainty to our results: Whereas our method is somewhat limited in the investigation of the J<0-model, the results for J>0 reveal important aspects of the physics of the mod…
The strong coupling half-filled Kondo lattice model is an important example of a strongly interacting dense Fermi system for which conventional Fermi gas analysis has thus far failed. We remedy this by deriving an exact transformation that maps the model to a dilute gas of weakly interacting electron and hole quasiparticles that can then be analyzed by conventional dilute Fermi gas methods. The quasiparticle vacuum is a singlet Mott insulator for which the quasiparticle dynamics are simple. Since the transformation is exact, the electron spectral weight sum rules are obeyed exactly. Subtleties…
We describe the transition from a ferromagnetic phase, to a disordered para- magnetic phase, which occurs in one-dimensional Kondo lattice models with partial conduction band filling. The transition is the quantum order-disorder transition of the transverse-field Ising chain, and reflects double-exchange ordered regions of localized spins being gradually destroyed as the coupling to the conduction electrons is reduced. For incommensurate conduction band filling, the low-energy properties of the localized spins near the transition are dominated by anomalous ordered (disordered) regions of local…
The periodic Anderson impurity model on the Lieb lattice is studied by the slave-boson mean-field approximation in the strong interaction limit. The electron structure of conduction electrons on the Lieb lattice features both the band flatness and soft gap at low energy. With these features conduction electrons can form both the soft-gap and the molecular Kondo singlets with the magnetic impurities, and this leads to a competition between the soft-gap and the molecular Kondo effects in the lattice. We find a selective Kondo strong coupling, where at selected sites the magnetic impurities are s…
We investigate a Kondo lattice model with correlated conduction electrons. Within dynamical mean-field theory the model maps onto an impurity model where the host has to be determined self-consistently. This impurity model can be derived from an Anderson-Hubbard model both by equating the low-energy excitations of the impurity and by a canonical transformation. On the level of dynamical mean-field theory this establishes the connection of the two lattice models. The impurity model is studied numerically by an extension of the non-crossing approximation to a two-orbital impurity. We find that w…
The ground state properties of the one-dimensional Kondo lattice with an f^2 configuration at each site are studied by the density matrix renormalization group method. At half-filling, competition between the Kondo exchange J and the antiferromagnetic intra f-shell exchange I leads to reduction of energy gaps for spin, quasi-particle and charge excitations. The attractive force among conduction electrons is induced by the competition and the bound state is formed. As J/I increases the f^2 singlet gives way to the Kondo singlet as the dominant local correlation. The remarkable change of the qua…
Recently it was shown that the multipolar Kondo problem, wherein a quantum impurity carrying higher-rank multipolar moments interacts with conduction electrons, leads to novel non-Fermi liquid states. Because of the multipolar character of the local moments, the form of the interaction with conduction electrons is strongly dependent on the orbital-symmetry of the conduction electrons via crystalline symmetry constraints. This suggests that there may exist a variety of different non-Fermi liquid states in generic multipolar Kondo problems depending on the character of conduction electrons. In t…
Recent experiments point to a variety of intermetallic systems which exhibit exotic quadrupolar orders driven by the Kondo coupling between conduction electrons and localized quadrupolar degrees of freedom. Using a Luttinger k.p Hamiltonian for the conduction electrons, we study the impact of such quadrupolar order on their energies and wave functions. We discover that such quadrupolar orders can induce a nontrivial Berry curvature for the conduction electron bands, leading to a nonvanishing optical gyrotropic effect. We estimate the magnitude of the gyrotropic response in a candidate quadrupo…
In frustrated magnets when magnetic ordering is suppressed down to low temperature, the formation of a quantum spin liquid becomes a possibility. How such a spin liquid manifests in the presence of conduction electrons is a question with potentially rich physical consequences, particularly when both the localized spins and conduction electrons reside on frustrated lattices. We propose a novel mechanism for symmetry breaking in systems where conduction electrons hybridize with a quantum spin liquid through Kondo couplings. We apply this to the pyrochlore iridate Pr2Ir2O7, which exhibits an anom…
The interplay between the Kondo effect and magnetic ordering driven by the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida interaction is studied within the two-dimensional Hubbard-Kondo lattice model. In addition to the antiferromagnetic exchange interaction, $J_\perp$, between the localized and the conduction electrons, this model also contains the local repulsion, $U$, between the conduction electrons. We use variational cluster approximation to investigate the competition between the antiferromagnetic phase, the Kondo singlet phase, and a ferrimagnetic phase on square lattice. At half-filling, the Néel anti…
The electronic structure of the Kondo lattice CeIn3 has been studied by on-resonant angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy. A weakly dispersive quasiparticle band has been observed directly with an energy dispersion of 4 meV by photoemission, implying the existence of weak hybridization between the f electrons and conduction electrons. The hybridization is further confirmed by the formation of the hybridization gap revealed by temperature-dependent scanning tunneling spectroscopy. Moreover, we find the hybridization strength in CeIn3 is much we…
We argue that topological Kondo insulators can also have 'intrinsic' topological order associated with fractionalized excitations on their surfaces. The hydridization between the local moments and conduction electrons can weaken near the surface, and this enables the local moments to form spin liquids. This co-exists with the conduction electron surface states, realizing a surface fractionalized Fermi liquid. We present mean-field solutions of a Kondo-Heisenberg model which display such surfaces.
We propose a nanoscale device consisting of a double quantum dot with strong intra- and inter- dot Coulomb repulsions. In this design, the current can only flow through the lower dot, but is triggered by the gate-controlled occupancy of the upper dot. At low temperatures, our calculations predict the double dot to pass through a narrow Kondo regime, resulting in highly sensitive switching characteristics between three well-defined states : insulating, normal conduction and resonant conduction.
We study the density of states and the optical conductivity of a Kondo lattice which is immersed in a massless Dirac Fermi sea, as characterized by a linear dispersion relation. As a result of the hybridization $V$ with the $f$-electron levels, the pseudo-gap in the conduction band becomes duplicated and is shifted both into the upper and the lower quasiparticle band. We find that due to the linear dispersion of the Dirac fermions, the Kondo insulator gap is observable in the optical conductivity in contrast to the Kondo lattice system in a conventional conduction band, and the resulting gap\,…
Using recently developed Lanczos technique we study finite-temperature properties of the 2D Kondo lattice model at various fillings of the conduction band. At half filling the quasiparticle gap governs physical properties of the chemical potential and the charge susceptibility at small temperatures. In the intermediate coupling regime quasiparticle gap scales approximately linearly with Kondo coupling. Temperature dependence of the spin susceptibility reveals the existence of two different temperature scales. A spin gap in the intermediate regime leads to exponential drop of the spin susceptib…
We show that local moment screening in a Kondo lattice with d-wave superconducting conduction electrons is qualitatively different from the corresponding single Kondo impurity case. Despite the conduction-electron pseudogap, Kondo-lattice screening is stable if the gap amplitude obeys $Δ<\sqrt{\tk D}$, in contrast to the single impurity condition $Δ<\tk$ (where $\tk$ is the Kondo temperature for $Δ= 0$ and D is the bandwidth). Our theory explains the heavy electron behavior in the d-wave superconductor Nd_{2-x}Ce_{x}CuO_{4}.
The conduction electron density of states nearby single magnetic impurities, as measured recently by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), is calculated, taking into account tunneling into conduction electron states only. The Kondo effect induces a narrow Fano resonance in the conduction electron density of states, while scattering off the d-level generates a weakly energy dependent Friedel oscillation. The line shape varies with the distance between STM tip and impurity, in qualitative agreement with experiments, but is very sensitive to details of the band structure. For a Co impurity the exp…
We study the Kondo-Heisenberg model using a fermionic representation for the localized spins. The mean-field phase diagram exhibits a zero temperature quantum critical point separating a spin liquid phase where the f-conduction hybridization vanishes, and a Kondo phase where it does not. Two solutions can be stabilized in the Kondo phase, namely a uniform hybridization when the band masses of the conduction electrons and the f spinons have the same sign, and a modulated one when they have opposite sign. For the uniform case, we show that above a very small Fermi liquid temperature scale (~1 mK…
Recent advances in scanning tunneling spectroscopy performed on heavy-fermion metals provide a window onto local electronic properties of composite heavy-electron quasiparticles. Here we theoretically investigate the energy and temperature evolution of single-particle spectra and their quasiparticle interference caused by point-like impurities in the framework of a periodic Anderson model. By numerically solving dynamical-mean-field-theory equations, we are able to access all temperatures and to capture the crossover from weakly interacting c and f electrons to fully coherent heavy quasipartic…
It is shown that in resistive nanowires out of equilibrium containing either single- or two-channel Kondo impurities the distribution function $f(E,U)$ obeys scaling behavior in terms of the quasiparticle energy $E$ and the bias voltage $U$. The numerically calculated $f(E,U)$ curves explain quantitatively recent experiments on Cu and Au nanowires. The systematics of the impurity concentration c_{imp} extracted from the comparison between theory and results on various Cu and Au samples strongly suggests that in these systems the scaling arises from magnetic Kondo impurities.
Kondo insulators have recently aroused great interest because they are promising materials that host a topological insulator state caused by the strong electron interactions. Moreover, recent observations of the quantum oscillations in the insulating state of Kondo insulators have come as a great surprise. Here, to investigate the surface electronic state of a prototype Kondo insulator YbB$_{12}$, we measured transport properties of single crystals and microstructures. In all samples, the temperature dependence of the electrical resistivity is insulating at high temperatures and the resistivit…
Kondo systems are usually described by the interaction of strong correlation induced local moment with the highly itinerant conduction electrons. Here, we study the role of electron correlations among conduction electrons in the electronic structure of a Kondo lattice compound, Ce$_2$CoSi$_3$, using high resolution photoemission spectroscopy and {\it ab initio} band structure calculations, where Co 3$d$ electrons contribute in the conduction band. High energy resolution employed in the measurements helped to reveal signature of Ce 4$f$ states derived Kondo resonance feature at the Fermi level …
Strong electron correlations can give rise to extraordinary properties of metals with renormalized quasiparticles which are at the basis of Landau's Fermi liquid theory. Near a quantum critical point, these quasiparticles can be destroyed and non-Fermi liquid behavior ensues. YbRh$_2$Si$_2$ is a prototypical correlated metal as it exhibits quasiparticles formation, formation of Kondo lattice coherence and quasiparticle destruction at a field-induced quantum critical point. Here we show how, upon lowering the temperature, the Kondo lattice coherence develops and finally gives way to non-Fermi l…
We show that for the half-filled Kondo lattice model on the honeycomb lattice a Kondo breakdown occurs at small Kondo couplings $J_k$ within the magnetically ordered phase. Our conclusions are based on auxiliary field quantum Monte Carlo simulations of the so-called composite fermion spectral function. Within a U(1) gauge theory formulation of the Kondo model, it becomes apparent that a Higgs mechanism dictates the weight of the resonance in the spectral function. For the honeycomb lattice we observe that for small $J_k$ the quasiparticle pole gives way to incoherent spectral weight but it rem…
The magnetic properties of the ferromagnetic Kondo-lattice model (FKLM) are investigated. Starting from an analysis of the magnon spectrum in the spin-wave regime, we examine the ferromagnetic stability as a function of the occupation of the conduction band $n$ and the strength $J$ of the coupling between the localised moments and the conduction electrons. From the properties of the spin-wave stiffness $D$ the ferromagnetic phase at zero temperature is derived. Using an approximate formula the critical temperature $T_c$ is calculated as a function of $J$ and $n$.
We study the role of the onset of Shockley states, $D_s$, belonging to (111) surfaces of Cu, Ag and Au in the Kondo effect when a magnetic impurity is deposited on them. When $D_s$ approaches to the Fermi level, $E_F$, thing that can be done by compressing (stretching) the metallic sample, we found that most of the thermodynamic and dynamic properties of the impurity are affected in a non trivial way. We model the system by a generic Anderson impurity model and solve it by using the numerical renormalization group, NRG, technique. In particular, the impurity contribution to magnetic susceptibi…
In a large number of rare-earth and actinide systems, Kondo effect tends to suppress magnetic order by making the spin singlet between localized and conduction electron spins. In the presence of orbital degrees of freedom, however, there emerge exotic electronic orders induced by Kondo effect. The orbital Kondo effect can collectively make diagonal and off-diagonal (superconducting) orders. With the particle-hole symmetry in conduction bands, these orders are all degenerate, forming a macroscopic SO(5) multiplet. This paper discusses recent theoretical development on these electronic orders wh…
We clarify the two-channel Kondo effect in the seven-orbital Anderson model hybridized with $Γ_8$ conduction electrons by employing a numerical renormalization group method.From the numerical analysis for the case with two local $f$ electrons, corresponding to Pr$^{3+}$ or U$^{4+}$ ion, we confirm that a residual entropy of $0.5\log 2$, a characteristic of two-channel Kondo phenomena,appears for the local $Γ_3$ non-Kramers doublet state. For further understanding on the $Γ_3$ state, the effective model is constructed on the basis of a $j$-$j$ coupling scheme. Then, we rediscover the two-channe…
We study the two-dimensional Kondo lattice model with an additional Heisenberg exchange between localized spins. In a first step we use mean-field theory with two order parameters. The first order parameter is a complex pairing amplitude between conduction electrons and localized spins which describes condensation of Kondo (or Zhang-Rice) singlets. A nonvanishing value implies that the localized spins contribute to the Fermi surface volume. The second order parameter describes singlet-pairing between the localized spins and competes with the Kondo-pairing order parameter. Reduction of the carr…
Dynamics of the singlet-triplet crystalline electric field (CEF) system at finite temperatures is discussed by use of the non-crossing approximation. Even though the Kondo temperature is smaller than excitation energy to the CEF triplet, the Kondo effect appears at temperatures higher than the CEF splitting, and accordingly only quasi-elastic peak is found in the magnetic spectra. On the other hand, at lower temperatures the CEF splitting suppresses the Kondo effect and inelastic peak develops. The broad quasi-elastic neutron scattering spectra observed in PrFe_4P_{12} at temperatures higher t…
While standard heavy fermion metals feature a single spin-1/2 local moment per unit cell, more complicated systems with multiple distinct local moments have been synthesized as well, with Ce_3Pd_20(Si,Ge)_6 being one example. Here, we discuss the physics of a Kondo lattice model with two local-moment sublattices, coupled with different Kondo couplings to conduction electrons. The phase diagram will be strongly modified from that of the standard Kondo lattice if the characteristic screening temperatures of the distinct moments are well separated. Therefore, we investigate the interplay between …
In a Kondo lattice, the spin exchange coupling between a local spin and the conduction electrons acquires nonlocal contributions due to conduction electron scattering from surrounding local spins and the subsequent RKKY interaction. It leads to a hitherto unrecognized interference of Kondo screening and the RKKY interaction beyond the Doniach scenario. We develop a renormalization group theory for the RKKY-modified Kondo vertex. The Kondo temperature, $T_K(y)$, is suppressed in a universal way, controlled by the antiferromagnetic RKKY coupling parameter $y$. Complete spin screening ceases to e…
We present theoretical results for a Kondo-lattice model with spin-1/2 localized moments, including both the intrasite Kondo coupling and an intersite antiferromagnetic exchange interaction, treated within an extended mean-field approximation. We describe here the case of a non-integer conduction-band filling for which an ``exhaustion'' problem arises when the number of conduction electrons is not large enough to screen all the lattice spins. This is best seen in the computed magnetic susceptibility. The Kondo temperature so obtained is different from the single-impurity one, and increases for…
We investigate the paramagnetic periodic Anderson model using the dynamical mean-field theory in combination with the modified perturbation theory which interpolates between the weak and strong coupling limits. For the symmetric PAM, the ground state is always a singlet state. However, as function of the hybridization strength, a crossover from collective to local Kondo screening is found. Reducing the number of conduction electrons, the local Kondo singlets remain stable. The unpaired f-electrons dominate the physics of the system. For very low conduction electron densities, a large increase …
We study the transport properties of the Kondo insulator SmB$_6$ with a specialized configuration designed to distinguish bulk-dominated conduction from surface-dominated conduction. We find that as the material is cooled below 4 K, it exhibits a crossover from bulk to surface conduction with a fully insulating bulk. We take the robustness and magnitude of the surface conductivity, as is manifest in the literature of SmB$_6$, to be strong evidence for the topological insulator metallic surface states recently predicted for this material.
We investigate possible topological superconductivity in the Kondo-Kitaev model on the honeycomb lattice, where the Kitaev spin liquid is coupled to conduction electrons via the Kondo coupling. We use the self-consistent Abrikosov-fermion mean-field theory to map out the phase diagram. Upon increasing the Kondo coupling, a first order transition occurs from the decoupled phase of spin liquid and conduction electrons to a ferromagnetic topological superconductor of Class D with a single chiral Majorana edge mode. This is followed by a second order transition into a paramagnetic topological supe…
A magnetic moment in a metal or in a quantum dot is, at low temperatures, screened by the conduction electrons through the mechanism of the Kondo effect. This gives rise to spin-spin correlations between the magnetic moment and the conduction electrons, which can have a substantial spatial extension. We study this phenomenon, the so-called Kondo cloud, by means of the density matrix renormalization group method for the case of the single-impurity Anderson model. We focus on the question whether the Kondo screening length, typically assumed to be proportional to the inverse Kondo temperature, c…
A variant of the Anderson model, that describes hybridization between localized state (c-state) of a quantum dot and a Fermi sea conduction band, is investigated. We demonstrate that, as a function of the hybridization parameter v, the system undergoes a crossover from the state where the conduction band and the c-level are fully coupled to a state where these are decoupled. The c-electron spectrum, however, has a gap together with the presence of the Kondo peak in the former state. For the latter, we have a Mott-like localization where the c-electron spectrum again has a gap without the Kondo…
Magnetic and charge susceptibilities in the Kondo lattice are derived by the continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo (CT-QMC) method combined with the dynamical mean-field theory. For a weak exchange coupling J and near half filling of the conduction band, antiferromagnetic transition occurs as signalled by divergence of the staggered magnetic susceptibility with lowering temperature. With increasing J, the Kondo effect suppresses the divergence, and the critical value of J agrees well with Doniach's estimate which considers the RKKY interaction as competing with the Kondo effect. For low density …
Peculiar property of electronic order is clarified for the two-channel Kondo lattice. With two conduction electrons per site, the order parameter is a composite quantity involving both local and itinerant degrees of freedom. In contrast to the ordinary Kondo lattice, a heavy electron band is absent above the transition temperature, but is rapidly formed below it. The change of entropy associated with the ordering is found to be close to $\ln \sqrt 2$ per site. This entropy corresponds to the residual entropy in a two-channel Kondo impurity, which has been regarded as due to localized free Majo…
Filled-skutterudite heavy fermion (HF) compounds host rich ground states depending on the f electron configurations. CeOs4Sb12 (COS) with Ce 4f1, and PrOs4Sb12 (POS) with Pr 4f2 configurations show distinct properties of Kondo insulating and HF superconductivity, respectivity. We unveiled the underlying microscopic origin by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy studies. Their eV-scale band structure matches well, representing the common characters of conduction electrons in ROs4Sb12 systems (R = rare earth). However, f electrons interact differently with conduction electrons in them. Stro…
We discuss the paramagnetic and Neel-ordered phases of the Kondo lattice Hamiltonian on the 2D square lattice by means of bond Fermions. In the doped case we find two antiferromagnetic solutions, the first one with small ordered moment, heavy bands, and an antiferromagetically folded large Fermi surface - i.e. including the localized spins - the second one with large ordered moment, light bands and an antiferromagnetically folded conduction electron-only Fermi surface. The zero temperature phase diagram as a function of Kondo coupling and conduction electron density shows first and second orde…
We study both the electrical and thermal transport near the heavy-fermion quantum critical point (QCP), identified with the breakdown of the Kondo effect as an orbital selective Mott transition. We show that the contribution to the electrical conductivity comes mainly from conduction electrons while the thermal conductivity is given by both conduction electrons and localized fermions (spinons), scattered with dynamical exponent $z = 3$. This scattering mechanism gives rise to a quasi-linear temperature dependence of the electrical and thermal resistivity. The characteristic feature of the Kond…
A model of spin relaxation in Kondo lattices is proposed to explain the presence of an electron spin resonance (ESR) signal in the heavy fermion compounds YbRh2Si2 and YbIr2Si2. Coupled equations for dynamical susceptibilities of Kondo ions and conduction electrons are derived by means of the functional derivative method. The perturbational scaling approach reveals the collective spin motion of Yb ions with conduction electrons in the bottleneck regime. A common energy scale due to the Kondo effect regulates the temperature dependence of the different kinetic coefficients and results in a mutu…
Quantum criticality in systems of local moments interacting with itinerant electrons has become an important and diverse field of research. Here we review recent results which concern (a) quantum phase transitions in single-impurity Kondo and Anderson models and (b) quantum phase transitions in heavy-fermion lattice models which involve critical quasiparticles. For (a) the focus will be on impurity models with a pseudogapped host density of states and their applications, e.g., in graphene and other Dirac materials, while (b) is devoted to strong-coupling behavior near antiferromagnetic quantum…
