We study the Kondo lattice model using a class of canonical transformations that allow us to faithfully represent the model entirely in terms of fermions without constraints. The transformations generate interacting theories that we study using mean field theory. Of particular interest is a new manifestly O(3)-symmetric representation in terms of Majorana fermions at half-filling on bipartite lattices. This representation suggests a natural O(3)-symmetric trial state that is investigated and characterized as a gapped spin liquid.
The mechanism of strange metal (SM) with unconventional charge transport near magnetic phase transitions has become an outstanding open problem in correlated electron systems. Recently, an exotic quantum critical SM phase was observed in paramagnetic frustrated heavy-fermion materials near Kondo breakdown. We establish a controlled theoretical framework to this issue via a dynamical large-N fermionic multichannel approach to the two-dimensional Kondo-Heisenberg lattice model, where KB transition separates a heavy-Fermi liquid from fermionic spin-liquid state. With Kondo fluctuations being full…
The underlying Dirac point is central to the profound physics manifested in a wide class of materials. However, it is often difficult to drive a system with Dirac points across the massless fermionic critical point. Here by exploiting screening of local moments under spin-orbit interactions in a Kondo lattice, we show that below the Kondo temperature, the Kondo lattice undergoes a topological transition from a strong topological insulator to a weak topological insulator at a finite temperature $T_D$. At $T_D$, massless Dirac points emerge and the Kondo lattice becomes a Dirac semimetal. Our an…
A purely fermionic representation is introduced for the ferromagnetic Kondo lattice model which allows conventional diagrammatic tools to be employed to study correlation effects. Quantum 1/S corrections to magnon excitations are investigated using a systematic inverse-degeneracy expansion scheme which incorporates correlation effects in the form of self-energy and vertex corrections, while explicitly preserving the continuous spin-rotation symmetry. Magnon self-energy is studied in the full range of interaction strength, and shown to result in strong magnon damping and anomalous softening for…
Geometrically frustrated quantum impurities coupled to metallic leads have been shown to exhibit rich behavior with a quantum phase transition separating Kondo screened and local moment phases. Frustration in the quantum impurity can alternatively be introduced via Kitaev-couplings between different spins of the impurity cluster. We use the Numerical Renormalization Group (NRG) to study a range of systems where the quantum impurity comprising a Kitaev cluster is coupled to a bath of non-interacting fermions. The models exhibits a competition between Kitaev and Kondo dominated physics depending…
Quantum phase transition of fermionic atoms in anisotropic triangular optical lattice was investigated by dynamical cluster approximation combining with continuous time quantum Monte Carlo algorithm. The temperature-interaction phase diagram for different hoping terms and the competition between the anisotropic parameter and interaction is presented. Our results show that the system undergoes Mott transition from Fermi liquid to Mott insulator while the repulsive interaction reach the critical value. The Kondo metal characterized by Kondo peak in the density of states is found in this systems …
The new Kondo material YbIr$_3$Si$_7$, similar to other Kondo insulators, has been reported to exhibit charge-neutral fermionic excitations through measurements of specific heat and thermal conductivity at low temperatures. We performed $^{29}$Si-NMR on YbIr$_3$Si$_7$ to investigate the magnetic response of charge-neutral fermions from a microscopic perspective. In low magnetic fields parallel to the $c$ axis, a single NMR peak in the paramagnetic state splits into three peaks below $T_{\rm N}$. In contrast, only a slight shift of the single NMR peak was observed in high magnetic fields. This …
We have studied the interplay of a local phonon mode embedded in a metallic host (Holstein impurity model) using Abelian bosonization. The phonon frequency softens, which takes place in two steps: first, their frequency starts softening, and acquires finite lifetime. Then oscillations disappear from the response, and two distinct, finite dampings characterize them. Similar behaviour shows up in the spin-boson model. Due to phonons, the electrons experience an attractive, dynamic interaction. As a result, the electronic charge response enhances similarly to the spin response in the Kondo model.…
We revisit the physics of a Kondo impurity coupled to a fermionic host with a diverging power-law density of states near the Fermi level, $ρ(ω) \sim |ω|^r$, with exponent $-1<r<0$. Using the analytical understanding of several fixed points, based partially on powerful mappings between models with bath exponents $r$ and $(-r)$, combined with accurate numerical renormalization group calculations, we determine thermodynamic quantities within the stable phases, and also near the various quantum phase transitions. Antiferromagnetic Kondo coupling leads to strong screening with a negative zero-tempe…
We address the phenomenon of critical Kondo destruction in pseudogap Bose-Fermi Anderson and Kondo quantum impurity models. These models describe a localized level coupled both to a fermionic bath having a density of states that vanishes like |ε|^r at the Fermi energy (ε=0) and, via one component of the impurity spin, to a bosonic bath having a sub-Ohmic spectral density proportional to |ω|^s. Each bath is capable by itself of suppressing the Kondo effect at a continuous quantum phase transition. We study the interplay between these two mechanisms for Kondo destruction using continuous-time qu…
In this lecture, we review the experimental situation of heavy Fermions with emphasis on the existence of a quantum phase transition (QPT) and related non-Fermi liquid (NFL) effects. We overview the Kondo lattice model (KLM) which is believed to describe the physics of those systems. After recalling the existing theories based on large-N expansion and various N=2 schemes, we present two alternative approaches: (i) a spin fluctuation-Kondo functional integral approach treating the spin-fluctuation and Kondo effects on an equal footing, and (ii) a supersymmetric theory enlarging the usual fermio…
Magnetic impurities coupled to both fermionic and bosonic baths or to a fermionic bath with pseudogap density of states, described by the Fermi-Bose Kondo and pseudogap Kondo models, display non-trivial intermediate coupling fixed points associated with critical local-moment fluctuations and local non-Fermi liquid behavior. Based on renormalization group together with a renormalized perturbation expansion around the free-impurity limit, we calculate various impurity properties in the vicinity of those intermediate-coupling fixed points. In particular, we compute the conduction electron T matri…
We analyze a microscopic origin of the Kondo effect-assisted orbital order in heavy-fermion materials. By studying the periodic two-orbital Anderson model with two local electrons, we show that frustration of Hund's rule coupling due to the Kondo effect leads to an incommensurate spiral orbital and magnetic order, which exists only inside the Kondo screened (heavy-electron) phase. This spiral state can be observed in neutron and resonant X-ray scattering measurements in ${\rm U}$- and ${\rm Pr}$-based heavy-fermion compounds, and realized in cold atomic gases, e.g. fermionic ${}^{173}{\rm Yb}$…
We study the deconfined quantum critical point of the Kondo-Heisenberg lattice in three dimensions 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 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 spinons have the same sign, and a modulated one when they have opposite sign. For the uniform case, we show that above a v…
We propose a new approach to the Kondo lattice in order to describe simultaneously the Kondo effect and the local magnetism. This approach relies on an original representation of the $S=1/2$ impurity spin in which the different degrees of freedom are represented by fermionic as well as bosonic variables. The magnetic instability is found at $J_c/D =0.67$ in definite improvement compared to usual fermionic mean- field theories. The dynamical susceptibility contains an inelastic peak in addition to the standard Lindhard-type Fermi liquid contribution. The Fermi surface sum rule includes $n_c+1$ …
We provide numerical evidence that a spin-flux phase exists as a ground state of the Kondo lattice model with classical local spins on a square lattice. This state manifests itself as a double-Q magnetic order in the classical spins with spin density at both $(0,π)$ and $(π,0)$ and further exhibits fermionic spin currents around an elementary plaquette of the square lattice. We examine the spin-wave spectrum of this phase. We further discus an extension to a face centered cubic (FCC) lattice where a spin-flux phase may also exist. On the FCC lattice the spin-flux phase manifests itself as a tr…
Quantum Monte Carlo studies of U(1) lattice gauge models of Kondo breakdown
Institut für Theoretische Physik und Astrophysik and Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat, Universität Würzburg（维尔茨堡大学理论与天体物理研究所及维尔茨堡-德累斯顿ct.qmat卓越集群）
Motivated by the growing interest in the novel quantum phases in materials with strong electron correlations and spin-orbit coupling, we study the interplay between the spin-orbit coupling, Kondo interaction, and magnetic frustration of a Kondo lattice model on a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice. We calculate the renormalized electronic structure and correlation functions at the saddle point based on a fermionic representation of the spin operators. We find a global phase diagram of the model at half-filling, which contains a variety of phases due to the competing interactions. In addition to…
We study a generalized multichannel single-impurity Kondo model, in which the impurity spin is described by a representation of the SU(N) group which combines bosonic and fermionic degrees of freedom. The impurity spin states are described by Abrikosov pseudofermions, and we make use of a method initiated by Popov and Fedotov which allows a proper handling of the fermionic constraint. The partition function is derived within a path integral approach. We use renormalization group techniques to calculate the $β$ scaling function perturbatively in powers of the Kondo coupling constant, which is j…
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 …
We study an extended SU(N) single-impurity Kondo model in which the impurity spin is described by a combination of Abrikosov fermions and Schwinger bosons. Our aim is to describe both the quasiparticle-like excitations and the locally critical modes observed in various physical situations, including non-Fermi liquid (NFL) behavior in heavy fermions in the vicinity of a quantum critical point and anomalous transport properties in quantum wires. In contrast with models with either pure bosonic or pure fermionic impurities, the strong coupling fixed point is unstable against the conduction electr…
In the field of condensed matter, the quest to obtain an experimental realization of a Kondo lattice has generated a tremendous effort of the community, from both standpoints of experiments and theory. The pursuit of obtaining independent magnetic moments, via charge localization through Coulomb interactions, is paramount for applications in nanotechnology. In particular, systems with simultaneous charge and spin degrees of freedom can manifest both Kondo spin quenching and Mott-Hubbard charge localization. A unified experimental framework illuminating the pathway between the two phenomena is …
We consider a magnetic impurity coupled to both fermionic quasiparticles with a pseudogap density of states and bosonic spin fluctuations. Using renormalization group and large-N calculations we investigate the phase diagram of the resulting Fermi-Bose Kondo model. We show that the Kondo temperature is strongly reduced by low-energy spin fluctuations, and make connections to experiments in cuprate superconductors. Furthermore we derive an exact exponent for the critical behavior of the conduction electron T matrix, and propose our findings to be relevant for certain scenarios of local quantum …
We show that ultracold atoms can be controlled in multi-band optical lattices through spatially periodic Raman pulses for investigation of a class of strongly correlated physics related to the Kondo problem. The underlying dynamics of this system is described by a spin-dependent fermionic or bosonic Kondo-Hubbard lattice model even if we have only spin-independent atomic collision interaction. We solve the bosonic Kondo-Hubbard lattice model through a mean-field approximation, and the result shows a clear phase transition from the ferromagnetic superfluid to the Kondo-signet insulator at the i…
A theory is proposed to describe the competition among antiferromagnetism (AF), spin glass (SG) and Kondo effect. The model describes two Kondo sublattices with an intrasite Kondo interaction strength $J_{K}$ and a random Gaussian interlattice interaction in the presence of a transverse field $Γ$. The $Γ$ field is introduced as a quantum mechanism to produce spin flipping and the random coupling has average $-2J_0/N$ and variance $32 J^{2}/N$. The path integral formalism with Grassmann fields is used to study this fermionic problem, in which the disorder is treated within the framework of the …
The thermal conductivity $κ$ of the Kondo insulator SmB$_6$ was measured at low temperature, down to 70 mK, in magnetic fields up to 15 T, on single crystals grown using both the floating-zone and the flux methods. The residual linear term $κ_0/T$ at $T \to 0$ is found to be zero in all samples, for all magnetic fields, in agreement with previous studies. There is therefore no clear evidence of fermionic heat carriers. In contrast to some prior data, we observe a large enhancement of $κ(T)$ with increasing field. The effect of field is anisotropic, depending on the relative orientation of fiel…
We present theoretical results for the underscreened Kondo lattice model with localized S=1 spins coupled to a conduction band through a Kondo coupling, $J_K$, and interacting among them ferromagnetically. We use a fermionic representation for the spin operators and expand the Hamiltonian in terms of bosonic fields. For large values of $J_K$, we obtain a ferromagnetically ordered solution and a Kondo regime with a Kondo temperature, $T_K$, larger than the Curie temperature, $T_C$. This finding suggests a scenario for a coexistence of Kondo effect and ferromagnetic order. In some uranium compou…
We study an extended SU(N) single-impurity Kondo model in which the impurity spin is described by a combination of Abrikosov fermions and Schwinger bosons. Our aim is to describe both the quasiparticle-like excitations and the locally critical modes observed in various physical situations, including non-Fermi liquid behavior in heavy fermion systems in the vicinity of a quantum critical point. We identify the strong coupling fixed point of the model and study its stability within second order perturbation theory. Already in the single channel case and in contrast with either the pure bosonic o…
Using a canonical transformation it is possible to faithfully represent the Kondo lattice model in terms of Majorana fermions. Studying this representation we discovered an exact mapping between the Kondo lattice Hamiltonian and a Hamiltonian describing three spinless fermions interacting on a lattice. We investigate the effectiveness of this three fermion representation by performing a zero temperature mean-field study of the phase diagram at different couplings and fillings for the one-dimensional case, focusing on the appearance of ferromagnetism. The solutions agree in many respects with t…
The absence of negative sign problem in quantum Monte Carlo simulations of spin and fermion systems has different origins. World-line based algorithms for spins require positivity of matrix elements whereas auxiliary field approaches for fermions depend on symmetries such as particle-hole. For negative-sign-free spin and fermionic systems, we show that one can formulate a negative-sign-free auxiliary field quantum Monte Carlo algorithm that allows Kondo coupling of fermions with the spins. Using this general approach, we study a half-filled Kondo lattice model on the Honeycomb lattice with geo…
We propose that ultracold alkaline-earth-like atoms confined in one-dimensional optical lattice can realize a Kondo lattice model which hosts a symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phase and an associated quantum phase transition in a controllable manner. The symmetry protection of the phase transition is discussed from two different viewpoints: topological properties related to spatial patterns of Kondo singlets, and symmetry eigenvalues of the spin states. We uncover the role of various symmetries in the phase diagram of this system by combining a weak-coupling approach by Abelian bosonizati…
In heavy-fermion systems, the competition between the local Kondo physics and intersite magnetic fluctuations results in unconventional quantum critical phenomena which are frequently addressed within the Kondo lattice model (KLM). Here we study this interplay in the SU($N$) symmetric generalization of the two-dimensional half-filled KLM by quantum Monte Carlo simulations with $N$ up to 8. While the long-range antiferromagnetic (AF) order in SU($N$) quantum spin systems typically gives way to spin-singlet ground states with spontaneously broken lattice symmetry, we find that the SU($N$) KLM is…
An exotic fractionalized Fermi-liquid FL$^*$ theory of metallic systems, which combines resonant-valence-bond (RVB) state and the band of current carriers, is treated. An application of this theory to spin-liquid, antiferromagnetic and nearly antiferromagnetic systems is proposed with the use of various bosonic and fermionic representations, a comparison with perturbation theory in the $s-d(f)$ exchange model being performed. The topological aspects including formation of the small Fermi surface are treated. In the case of narrow bands (strong correlations), the ground state is considered as a…
A theory is proposed to describe the competition among antiferromagnetism (AF), spin glass (SG) and Kondo effect. The model describes two Kondo sublattices with an intrasite Kondo interaction strength $J_{K}$ and an interlattice quantum Ising interaction in the presence of a transverse field $Γ$. The interlattice coupling is a random Gaussian distributed variable (with average $-2J_0/N$ and variance $32 J^{2}/N$) while the $Γ$ field is introduced as a quantum mechanism to produce spin flipping. The path integral formalism is used to study this fermionic problem where the spin operators are rep…
Notable non-Fermi liquid and quantum critical behaviors are observed in rare-earth metallic systems with non-Kramers local moments supporting a number of different multipolar moments. A prominent example is $\text{Pr(Ti,V)}_{2}\text{Al}_{20}$, where the non-Kramers doublet of the $\text{Pr}^{3+}$ ion allows quadrupolar and octupolar moments, but lacks a dipolar moment. Previous theoretical studies show that a single impurity Kondo problem with such an unusual local moment leads to novel non-Fermi liquid states. In this work, we investigate possible quantum critical behaviors arising from the c…
In the new van der Waals Kondo-lattice Fe$_3$GeTe$_2$, itinerant ferromagnetism and heavy fermionic behaviour coexist. Both the key properties of such a system namely a spin-polarized Fermi surface and a low Fermi momentum are expected to significantly alter Andreev reflection dominated transport at a contact with a superconducting electrode, and display unconventional proximity-induced superconductivity. We observed interplay between Andreev reflection and Kondo resonance at mesoscopic interfaces between superconducting Nb and Fe$_3$GeTe$_2$. Above the critical temperature ($T_c$) of Nb, the …
We investigate the stability of the Néel quantum critical point of two-dimensional quantum antiferromagnets, described by a non-linear $σ$ model (NL$σ$M), in the presence of a Kondo coupling to $N_f$ flavours of two-component Dirac fermion fields. The long-wavelength order parameter fluctuations are subject to Landau damping by electronic particle-hole fluctuations. Using momentum-shell RG, we demonstrate that the Landau damping is weakly irrelevant at the Néel quantum critical point, despite the fact that the corresponding self-energy correction dominates over the quadratic gradient terms in …
The pseudogap Kondo problem, describing quantum impurities coupled to fermionic quasiparticles with a pseudogap density of states, rho(omega) ~ |omega|^r, shows a rich zero-temperature phase diagram, with different screened and free moment phases and associated transitions. We analyze both the particle-hole symmetric and asymmetric cases using renormalization group techniques. In the vicinity of r=0, which plays the role of a lower-critical dimension, an expansion in the Kondo coupling is appropriate. In contrast, r=1 is the upper-critical dimension in the absence of particle-hole symmetry, an…
In solids containing elements with f orbitals, the interaction between f-electron spins and those of itinerant electrons leads to the development of low-energy fermionic excitations with a heavy effective mass. These excitations are fundamental to the appearance of unconventional superconductivity and non-Fermi-liquid behaviour observed in actinide- and lanthanide-based compounds. Here we use spectroscopic mapping with the scanning tunnelling microscope to detect the emergence of heavy excitations with lowering of temperature in a prototypical family of cerium-based heavy-fermion compounds. We…
We present a new supersymmetric approach to the Kondo lattice model in order to describe simultaneously the quasiparticle excitations and the low-energy magnetic fluctuations in heavy-Fermion systems. This approach mixes the fermionic and the bosonic representation of the spin following the standard rules of superalgebra. Our results show the formation of a bosonic band within the hybridization gap reflecting the spin collective modes. The density of states at the Fermi level is strongly renormalized while the Fermi surface sum rule includes $n_{c}+1$ states. The dynamical susceptibility is ma…
We introduce an efficient Langevin method to study bilinear Fermionic Hamiltonians interacting with classical fields. Our method is suitable for very large systems and offers high accuracy. To demonstrate the method, we study complex non-coplanar chiral spin textures on the triangular Kondo lattice model. We also explore non-equilibrium mesoscale physics such as chiral domain coarsening and Z2 vortex annihilation.
We show that spatially local, yet low-energy, fluctuations can play an essential role in the physics of strongly correlated electron systems tuned to a quantum critical point. A detailed microscopic analysis of the Kondo lattice model is carried out within an extended dynamical mean-field approach. The correlation functions for the lattice model are calculated through a self-consistent Bose-Fermi Kondo problem, in which a local moment is coupled both to a fermionic bath and to a bosonic bath (a fluctuating magnetic field). A renormalization-group treatment of this impurity problem--perturbativ…
