The concepts of deconfinement and topological order are of great current interest for quantum information science and for our understanding of quantum materials. Here, we introduce a simple model of three antiferromagnetically coupled Kondo impurities, a Kondo triangle, which can be used to further extend the application of these concepts to electronic systems. We show that, by tuning the magnetic frustration, the Kondo triangle undergoes a quantum phase transition between two phases of unbroken symmetry, signaling a phase transition beyond the Landau paradigm. We demonstrate that the frustrated spin liquid phase is described by a three-channel Kondo (3CK) fixed point and thus displays an irrational ground state degeneracy. Using an Abrikosov pseudofermion representation, this quantum state is categorized by an emergent U(1) gauge field and its projective symmetry group. The gauge theory is deconfining in the sense that a miniature Wilson loop orders and topological defects (instantons in the gauge field) are expelled. This phase persists in the presence of moderate Kondo screening until proliferation of topological defects leads to a quantum phase transition to an unfrustrated Fermi liquid phase. Based on this evidence, we propose that the 3CK phase displays topological order in a similar sense as gapless spin liquids.
Studying the dynamical spin structure factor in frustrated spin chains with spontaneously dimerized ground state we show that besides the gapped spin-wave excitations there appears at finite temperatures also a sharp central peak. The latter can be attributed to deconfined spinons, accounted well within the variational approach. The central peak remains well pronounced within the local spin dynamics and may be relevant for experiments on materials with 1D frustrated spin chains.
We consider topological order and dimer order in several frustrated spin ladder models, which are related to higher dimensional models of current interest; we also address the occurrence of fractionalized phases with deconfined spinon excitations in these models. Combining results obtained with both analytic and numerical methods, we discuss how the occurrence of dimerized or fractionalized phases are dictated by the system's geometry.
The confinement of a spinon liberated by doping two-dimensional frustrated quantum antiferromagnets with a non-magnetic impurity or a mobile hole is investigated. For a static vacancy, an intermediate behavior between complete deconfinement (kagome) and strong confinement (checkerboard) is identified in the J_1{-}J_2{-}J_3 model on the square lattice, with the emergence of two length scales, a spinon confinement length larger than the magnetic correlation length. For mobile holes, this translates into an extended spinon-holon boundstate allowing one to bridge momentum (ARPES spectral function)…
We investigate the effect of geometrical frustration on the competition between the Kondo coupling and the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida interaction in Kondo lattice systems. By variational Monte Carlo simulations, we reveal an emergent quantum phase with partial ordering in which the frustration is relieved by forming a magnetic order on a sublattice and leaving the rest in the Kondo screening with spin-singlet formation. The role of quantum fluctuations and spin-charge interplay is elucidated.
We use bosonization and renormalization group methods to determine the ground state phase diagram of a one-dimensional frustrated Kondo-Heisenberg system consisting of a one-dimensional spin-1/2 Luttinger liquid coupled by a Kondo exchange interaction $J_K$ to a frustrated quantum antiferromagnetic Heisenberg chain, with a nearest-neighbor exchange coupling $J_1$ and a next-nearest-neighbor (frustrating) exchange interaction $J_2$. We analyze the interplay of quantum frustration in the antiferromagnetic chain with the Kondo exchange coupling $J_K$ with the Luttinger liquid. We discuss the stru…
We use recently developed strong-coupling expansion methods to study the two-particle spectra for the frustrated alternating Heisenberg model, consisting of an alternating nearest neighbor antiferromagnetic exchange and a uniform second neighbor antiferromagnetic exchange. Starting from the limit of weakly coupled dimers, we develop high order series expansions for the effective Hamiltonian in the two-particle subspace. In the limit of a strong applied dimerization, we calculate accurately various properties of singlet and triplet bound states and quintet antibound states. We also develop seri…
A scaling theory of the Kondo lattices with frustrated exchange interactions is developed, criterium of antiferromagnetic ordering and quantum-disordered state being investigated. The calculations taking into account magnon and incoherent spin dynamics are performed. Depending on the bare model parameters, one or two quantum phase transitions into non-magnetic spin-liquid and Kondo Fermi-liquid ground states can occur with increasing the bare coupling constant. Whereas the renormalization of the magnetic moment in the ordered phase can reach orders of magnitude, spin fluctuation frequency and …
UNi4B exhibits unusual properties and, in particular, a unique antiferromagnetic arrangement involving only 2/3 of the U sites. Based on the low temperature behavior of this compound, we propose that the remaining 1/3 U sites are nonmagnetic due to the Kondo effect. We derive a model in which the coexistence of magnetic and nonmagnetic U sites is the consequence of the competition between frustration of the crystallographic structure and instability of the 5f moments.
Metallic spin liquid has been reported in several correlated metals, but a satisfactory theoretical description is not yet available. Here we propose a potential route to realize the metallic spin liquid and construct an effective $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge theory with charged fractionalized excitations on the triangular Kondo lattice. This leads to a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ metallic spin liquid featured with long-lived, heavy holon excitations of spin 0 and charge $+e$ and a partially enlarged electron Fermi surface. It differs from the weak-coupling FL$^*$ state proposed earlier and may be viewed as a frac…
We reveal the significance of kinetic-driven multiple-spin interactions hidden in geometrically-frustrated Kondo lattice models. Carefully examining the perturbation in terms of the spin-charge coupling up to the fourth order, we find that a positive biquadratic interaction is critically enhanced and plays a crucial role on stabilizing a spin scalar chiral order near 1/4 filling in a triangular lattice case. This is a generalized Kohn anomaly, appearing only when the second-order perturbation is inefficient because of the degeneracy under frustration. The mechanism is potentially common to fru…
Triangular symmetry stabilizes a novel non-Fermi-liquid phase in the three-impurity Kondo model with frustrating antiferromagnetic interactions between half-integer impurity spins. The phase arises without fine-tuning of couplings, and is stable against magnetic fields and particle-hole symmetry breaking. We find a conformal field theory describing this phase, verify it using the numerical renormalization group, and extract various exact, universal low-energy properties. Signatures predicted in electrical transport may be testable in scanning tunneling microscopy or quantum-dot experiments.
We present an extensive numerical study of a new type of frustrated itinerant magnetism on the pyrochlore lattice. In this theory, the pyrochlore magnet can be viewed as a cross-linking network of Kondo or double-exchange chains. Contrary to models based on Mott insulators, this itinerant magnetism approach provides a natural explanation for several spin and orbital superstructures observed on the pyrochlore lattice. Through extensive Monte Carlo simulations, we obtain the phase diagrams at two representative electron filling fractions $n = 1/2$ and 2/3. In particular, we show that an intrigui…
Magnetic frustrations can enhance quantum zero-point motion in spin systems and lead to exotic topological insulating states. When coupled to mobile electrons, they may lead to unusual non-Fermi liquid or metallic spin liquid states whose nature has not been well explored. Here, we propose a spin current Kondo mechanism underlying a series of non-Fermi liquid phases on the border of Kondo and magnetic phases in a frustrated three-impurity Kondo model. This mechanism is confirmed by renormalization group analysis and describes movable Kondo singlets called "holons" induced by an effective coupl…
We consider Dirac electrons on the honeycomb lattice Kondo coupled to spin-1/2 degrees of freedom on the kagome lattice. The interactions between the spins are chosen along the lines of the Balents-Fisher-Girvin model that is known to host a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ spin liquid and a ferromagnetic phase. The model is amenable to sign free auxiliary field quantum Monte Carlo simulations. While in the ferromagnetic phase the Dirac electrons acquire a gap, they remain massless in the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ spin liquid phase due to the breakdown of Kondo screening. Since our model has an odd number of spins per uni…
In this publication I discuss the phase diagram of a frustrated spin-1/2 Heisenberg model suggested in A. A. Nersesyan and A. M. Tsvelik, Phys. Rev. B{\bf 67}, 024422 (2003). The phase diagram contains $(π,0)$ and $(π,π)$ antiferromagnetic phases separated by the Valence Bond Crystal (VBC) state. I argue that the point of the phase diagram with deconfined spinons, predicted in the aforementioned work, is situated in the middle of VBC state, at the point where the dimerization order parameter changes sign.
The interplay between Kondo screening, indirect magnetic interaction and geometrical frustration is studied in the two-dimensional Kondo-necklace model on the triangular lattice. Using infinite projected entangled pair states (iPEPS), we compute the ground state as a function of the antiferromagnetic local Kondo interaction $J_K$ and the Ising-type direct spin-spin interaction $I_z$ . As opposed to previous studies, we do not find partial Kondo screening (PKS) in the isotropic limit $I_z = 0$ but the same behavior as in the unfrustrated case, i.e. a direct phase transition between the paradigm…
Intricacies of Frustrated Magnetism in the Kondo Metal YbAgGe
PSI Center for Neutron and Muon Sciences（保罗谢勒研究所中子与μ子科学中心）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University（爱荷华州立大学物理与天文系）；Ames National Laboratory（艾姆斯国家实验室）；Neutron Scattering Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory（橡树岭国家实验室中子散射部）；Dresden High Magnetic Field Laboratory (HLD-EMFL), Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf（德累斯顿强磁场实验室（HLD-EMFL），赫尔霍兹德累斯顿-罗斯多夫中心）；ISIS Facility, STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory（STFC卢瑟福阿普尔顿实验室ISIS设施）；Institut Laue-Langevin（朗之万研究所）
In the heavy-fermion metal CePdAl long-range antiferromagnetic order coexists with geometric frustration of one third of the Ce moments. At low temperatures the Kondo effect tends to screen the frustrated moments. We use magnetic fields $B$ to suppress the Kondo screening and study the magnetic phase diagram and the evolution of the entropy with $B$ employing thermodynamic probes. We estimate the frustration by introducing a definition of the frustration parameter based on the enhanced entropy, a fundamental feature of frustrated systems. In the field range where the Kondo screening is suppres…
We analyze theoretically the phase diagram of a triangular triple quantum dot with strong onsite repulsion coupled to ferromagnetic leads. This model includes the competition of magnetic ordering of local or itinerant magnetic moments, geometric frustration and Kondo screening. We identify all the phases resulting from this competition. We find that three Kondo phases -- the conventional one, the two-stage underscreened one, and the one resulting from the ferromagnetic Kondo effect -- can be realized at zero temperature, and all are very susceptible to the proximity of ferromagnetic leads. In …
The interplay between Kondo effect, indirect magnetic interaction and geometrical frustration is studied in the Kondo lattice on the one-dimensional zigzag ladder. Using the density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG), the ground state and various short- and long-range spin- and density-correlation functions are calculated for the model at half-filling as a function of the antiferromagnetic Kondo interaction down to $J=0.3t$ where $t$ is the nearest-neighbor hopping on the zigzag ladder. Geometrical frustration is shown to lead to at least two critical points: Starting from the strong-$J$ limi…
The critical properties of the frustrated Kondo necklace model with a half saturation magnetization ($m=1/2$) have been studied by means of an exact-diagonalization method. It is shown from bosonization technique that the model can be effectively expressed as a quantum sine-Gordom model. Thus it may show three (dimer plateau, N{é}el plateau and Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid) phases due to competitions among the Ising anisotropy $Δ$, and the nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor exchange interactions $J_1$ and $J_2$. The boundary lines on the $Δ-J_2/J_1$ phase diagram separating the three phases are d…
We present the benchmark of the polynomial expansion Monte Carlo method to a Kondo lattice model with classical localized spins on a geometrically frustrated lattice. The method enables to reduce the calculation amount by using the Chebyshev polynomial expansion of the density of states compared to a conventional Monte Carlo technique based on the exact diagonalization of the fermion Hamiltonian matrix. Further reduction is brought by a real-space truncation of the vector-matrix operations. We apply the method to the model with spin-ice type Ising spins on a three-dimensional pyrochlore lattic…
Muon spin relaxation experiments have been performed in the pyrochlore iridate Pr_2Ir_2O_7 for temperatures in the range 0.025-250 K. Kubo-Toyabe relaxation functions are observed up to > 200 K, indicating static magnetism over this temperature range. The T -> 0 static muon spin relaxation rate Delta(0) ~ 8 mus^-1 implies a weak quasistatic moment (~0.1 mu_B). The temperature dependence of Delta is highly non-mean-field-like, decreasing smoothly by orders of magnitude but remaining nonzero below ~150 K. The data rule out ordering of the full Pr^3+ CEF ground-state moment (3.0 mu_B) down to 0.0…
When magnetic order is suppressed by frustrated interactions, spins form a highly correlated fluctuating "spin liquid" state down to low temperatures. Magnetic order of local moments can also be suppressed when they are fully screened by conduction electrons through the Kondo effect. Thus, the combination of strong geometrical frustration and Kondo screening may lead to novel types of quantum phase transitions. We report low-temperature thermodynamic measurements on the frustrated Kondo lattice Pr$_2$Ir$_2$O$_7$, which displays a chiral spin liquid state below 1.5 K due to the frustrated inter…
We use ultrafast optical spectroscopy to observe binding of charged single-particle excitations (SE) in the magnetically frustrated Mott insulator Na$_2$IrO$_3$. Above the antiferromagnetic ordering temperature ($T_N$) the system response is due to both Hubbard excitons (HE) and their constituent unpaired SE. The SE response becomes strongly suppressed immediately below $T_N$. We argue that this increase in binding energy is due to a unique interplay between the frustrated Kitaev and the weak Heisenberg-type ordering term in the Hamiltonian, mediating an effective interaction between the spin-…
We show the existence of invariant energy levels in a Kondo lattice model on an isolated complete graph, such as a triangle and a tetrahedron. These energy levels always have fixed eigenenergies $t \pm J/2$, irrespective of the configuration of localized moments ($t$ is the transfer integral of conduction electrons and $J$ is the spin-charge coupling constant). We also extend the analysis to geometrically frustrated lattices by using the complete graphs as basic building blocks. We show that the construction rule for the invariant energy levels leads to the existence condition of localized sta…
Magnetization processes of frustrated Kondo necklace model are studied by means of a density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method and an elementary band theory based on a bond-operator formalism. The DMRG calculations clearly show the cusp singularity in a low-magnetization region ($0<m<1/2$) besides that in a high-magnetization region ($1/2<m<1$) which is expected from previous studies on the magnetization curve of the Majumdar-Ghosh model. An appearance mechanism of the low-magnetization cusp is interpreted in terms of a double-well shape of a low-energy band arising from frustrations …
The frustrated magnetism on the Kondo lattice system motivates intriguing Kondo-breakdown beyond the traditional Doniach scenario. Among them, the fractionalized Fermi liquid (FL*) has drawn a particular interest by virtue of its fractionalized nature. Here, we study the phase diagram of $J_{1}$-$J_{2}$ Kondo-Heisenberg model on a honeycomb lattice at a quarter filling. Employing the slave-fermion mean-field theory with $d \pm id$ spin liquid ansatz and exact diagonalization, we discuss the emergence of partial Kondo screening in the frustrated regime with comparable $J_{1}$ and $J_{2}$, and 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…
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…
Nanoelectronic quantum dot devices exploiting the charge-Kondo paradigm have been established as versatile and accurate analog quantum simulators of fundamental quantum impurity models. In particular, hybrid metal-semiconductor dots connected to two metallic leads realize the two-channel Kondo (2CK) model, in which Kondo screening of the dot charge pseudospin is frustrated. Here, we consider theoretically a two-channel charge-Kondo device made instead from graphene components, realizing a pseudogapped version of the 2CK model. We solve the model using Wilson's Numerical Renormalization Group m…
Motivated by recent experiments on magnetically frustrated heavy fermion metals, we theoretically study the phase diagram of the Kondo lattice model with a nonmagnetic valence bond solid ground state on a ladder. A similar physical setting may be naturally occurring in YbAl$_3$C$_3$, CeAgBi$_2$, and TmB$_4$ compounds. In the insulating limit, the application of a magnetic field drives a quantum phase transition to an easy-plane antiferromagnet, which is described by a Bose-Einstein condensation of magnons. Using a combination of field theoretical techniques and density matrix renormalization g…
Magnetic fluctuations induced by geometric frustration of local Ir-spins disturb the formation of long range magnetic order in the family of pyrochlore iridates, R$_{2}$Ir$_{2}$O$_{7}$ (R = lanthanide)$^{1}$. As a consequence, Pr$_{2}$Ir$_{2}$O$_{7}$ lies at a tuning-free antiferromagnetic-to-paramagnetic quantum critical point and exhibits a diverse array of complex phenomena including Kondo effect, biquadratic band structure, metallic spin-liquid (MSL), and anomalous Hall effect$^{2-5}$. Using spectroscopic imaging with the scanning tunneling microscope, complemented with machine learning K-…
We propose a one-dimensional model consisting of a chain with a t-J Hamiltonian coupled to a Heisenberg chain in a frustrated geometry to describe the appearance of the ferromagnetic phase which has been experimentally observed in vanadate nanotubes. This model contains a mechanism of frustration suppressed by doping suggested by L. Krusin-Elbaum, et al. [Nature 431, 672 (2004)]. We study, using numerical techniques in small clusters, the relation between magnetic order and transport properties in the proposed model, and we perform a detailed comparison of the physical properties of this model…
We study the Kondo lattice model on the geometrically frustrated Shastry-Sutherland lattice focusing on the quantum phase transition between the valence bond solid and the heavy fermion liquid phase. By explicitly including spinon pairing of local moments at the mean-field level, we establish the emergence of a unique heavy fermion superconducting phase induced by dimer ordering of the local moments coexisting with Kondo hybridization. Furthermore, we demonstrate that for suitable choices of parameters, a partial Kondo-screening phase, where some of the valence bonds are broken, precedes the a…
We investigate the necessary conditions for the emergence of complex, noncoplanar magnetic configurations in a Kondo lattice model with classical local moments on the geometrically frustrated Shastry-Sutherland lattice and their evolution in an external magnetic field. We demonstrate that topologically nontrivial spin textures, including a new canted flux state, with nonzero scalar chirality arise dynamically from realistic short-range interactions. Our results establish that a finite Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction is necessary for the emergence of these novel magnetic states when the …
We study the competition between Kondo screening and frustrated magnetism on the non-symmorphic Shastry-Sutherland Kondo lattice at a filling of two conduction electrons per unit cell. A previous analysis of this model identified a set of gapless partially Kondo screened phases intermediate between the Kondo-destroyed paramagnet and the heavy Fermi liquid. Based on crystal symmetries, we argue that (i)~both the paramagnet and the heavy Fermi liquid are {\it semimetals} protected by a glide symmetry; and (ii)~partial Kondo screening breaks the symmetry, removing this protection and allowing the…
Kondo insulators are emerging as a simplified setting to study both magnetic and metal-to-insulator quantum phase transitions. Here, we study a half-filled Kondo lattice model defined on a magnetically frustrated Shastry-Sutherland geometry. We determine a "global" phase diagram that features a variety of zero-temperature phases; these include Kondo-destroyed antiferromagnetic and paramagnetic metallic phases in addition to the Kondo-insulator phase. Our result provides the theoretical basis for understanding how applying pressure to a Kondo insulator can close its hybridization gap, liberate …
We investigate the ground state of the Kondo necklace model on geometrically-frustrated lattices by the variational Monte Carlo simulation. To explore the possibility of a partially-ordered phase, we employ an extension of the Yosida-type wave function as a variational state, which can describe a coexistence of spin-singlet formation due to the Kondo coupling and magnetic ordering by the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida interaction. We show the benchmark of the numerical simulation to demonstrate the high precision brought by the optimization of a large number of variational parameters. We discus…
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…
We report results of isothermal magnetotransport and susceptibility measurements at elevated magnetic fields B down to very low temperatures T on high-quality single crystals of the frustrated Kondo-lattice system CePdAl. They reveal a B*(T) line within the paramagnetic part of the phase diagram. This line denotes a thermally broadened 'small'-to-'large' Fermi surface crossover which substantially narrows upon cooling. At B_0* = B*(T=0) = (4.6 +/- 0.1) T, this B*(T) line merges with two other crossover lines, viz. Tp(B) below and T_FL(B) above B_0*. Tp characterizes a frustration-dominated spi…
We study the ground-state (gs) phase diagram of the frustrated spin-1/2 $J_{1}$-$J_{2}$-$J_{3}$ antiferromagnet with $J_{2} = J_{3} =κJ_1$ on the honeycomb lattice, using coupled-cluster theory and exact diagonalization methods. We present results for the gs energy, magnetic order parameter, spin-spin correlation function, and plaquette valence-bond crystal (PVBC) susceptibility. We find a Néel antiferromagnetic (AFM) phase for $κ< κ_{c_{1}} \approx 0.47$, a collinear striped AFM phase for $κ> κ_{c_{2}} \approx 0.60$, and a paramagnetic PVBC phase for $κ_{c_{1}} \lesssim κ\lesssim κ_{c_{2}}$. …
Heavy fermion metals typically exhibit unconventional quantum critical point or quantum critical phase at zero temperature due to competition of Kondo effect and magnetism. Previous theories were often based on certain local type of assumptions and a fully consistent explanation of experiments has not been achieved. Here we develop an efficient algorithm for the Schwinger boson approach to explore the effect of spatial correlations on the Kondo lattice and introduce the concept of nonlocal Kondo effect in the quantum critical region with deconfined spinons. We predict a global phase diagram co…
Some frustrated magnets and superconducting arrays possess unusual symmetries that cause the free energy or other physics of a $D$-dimensional quantum or classical problem to be that of a different problem in a reduced dimension $d<D$. Examples in two spatial dimensions include the square-lattice $p+ip$ superconducting array, the Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the checkerboard lattice (studied by a combination of 1/S expansion and numerical transfer matrix), and the ring-exchange superconducting array. Physical consequences are discussed both for ``weak'' dimensional reduction, which appears on…
Considerable recent theoretical and experimental efforts have been devoted to the study of quantum criticality and novel phases of antiferromagnetic heavy-fermion metals. In particular, quantum phase transitions have been discovered in the compound Yb$_2$Pt$_2$Pb. These developments have motivated us to study the competition between the RKKY and Kondo interactions on the Shastry-Sutherland lattice. We determine the zero-temperature phase diagram as a function of magnetic frustration and Kondo coupling within a slave-fermion approach. Pertinent phases include the Shastry-Sutherland valence bond…
In a metal, a magnetic impurity is fully screened by the conduction electrons at low temperature. In contrast, impurity moments coupled to spin-1 bulk bosons, such as triplet excitations in paramagnets, are only partially screened, even at the bulk quantum critical point. We argue that this difference is not due to the quantum statistics of the host particles but instead related to the structure of the impurity-host coupling, by demonstrating that frustrated magnets with bosonic spinon excitations can display a bosonic version of the Kondo effect. However, the Bose statistics of the bulk impli…
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…
We investigate a four-impurity Anderson model where localized orbitals are located at vertices of a regular tetrahedron and find a novel fixed point in addition to the ordinary Fermi liquid phase. That is characterized by unscreened scalar chirality of a tetrahedron. In this phase, parafermions emerges in the excitation spectrum and quasiparticle mass diverges as 1/|T log^3 T| at low temperatures (T). The diverging effective mass is a manifestation of singular Fermi liquid states as in the underscreened Kondo problem. Between the two phases, our Monte Carlo results show the existence of a non …
Quantum phase transitions have captured the interest of a large community in condensed-matter and atom physics research. The common feature of these very different material classes lies in the fact that the competition between low-energy scales can be tuned by a nonthermal parameter, such as pressure, magnetic or electric field, and chemical composition for the condensed-matter systems. In heavy-fermion materials, the strong exchange J between f-electrons and conduction electrons can lead to quenching of the f-electron-derived (nearly) localized magnetic moments via the Kondo effect or, if J b…
We study the ground state phase diagram of a frustrated spin-1/2 four-leg tube. Using a variety of complementary techniques, namely density matrix renormalization group, exact diagonalization, Schwinger boson mean field theory, quantum Monte-Carlo and series expansion, we explore the parameter space of this model in the regime of all-antiferromagnetic exchange. In contrast to unfrustrated four-leg tubes we uncover a rich phase diagram. Apart from the Luttinger liquid fixed point in the limit of decoupled legs, this comprises several gapped ground states, namely a plaquette, an incommensurate, …
From the electrical resistivity and ac susceptibility measurements down to $T$ = 40 mK, a rich temperature-field phase diagram has been constructed for the geometrically frustrated heavy-fermion compound CePdAl. In the limit of zero temperature, the field-induced suppression of the antiferromagnetism in this compound results in a sequence of phase transitions/corssovers, rather than a single critical point, in a critical region of field 3$-$5 T. In the lowest temperature region, a power-law description of the temperature-dependent resistivity yields $A$$\cdot$$T^n$ with $n$$>$2 for all applied…
