In this paper we consider a multi band extension to the periodic Anderson model. We use a single site DMFT(NRG) in order to study the impact of the conduction band mediated effective hopping of the correlated electrons between the correlated orbitals onto the heavy Fermi liquid formation. Whereas the hybridization of a single impurity model with two distinct conduction bands always adds up constructively, $T_{K}\propto \exp(-\mathrm{const}\, U/(Γ_1+Γ_2))$, we show that this does not have to be the case in lattice models, where, in remarkable contrast, also an low-energy Fermi liquid scale $T_0\propto \exp(-\mathrm{const}\, U/(Γ_1-Γ_2))$ can emerge due to quantum interference effects in multi band models, where $U$ denotes the local Coulomb matrix element of the correlated orbitals and $Γ_i$ the local hybridization strength of band $i$. At high symmetry points, heavy Fermi liquid formation is suppressed which is associated with a breakdown of the Kondo effect. This results in an asymptotically scale-invariant (i.e., power-law) spectrum of the correlated orbitals $\propto|ω|^{1/3}$, indicating non-Fermi liquid properties of the quantum critical point, and a small Fermi surface including only the light quasi-particles. This orbital selective Mott phase demonstrates the possibility of metallic local criticality within the general framework of ordinary single site DMFT.
We use the density matrix renormalization group method to study the properties of the one-dimensional Kondo-Heisenberg model doped with Kondo holes. We find that the perturbation of the Kondo holes to the local hybridization exhibits spatial oscillation pattern and its amplitude decays exponentially with distance away from the Kondo hole sites. The hybridization oscillation is correlated with both the charge density oscillation of the conduction electrons and the oscillation in the correlation function of the Heisenberg spins. In particular, we find that the oscillation wavelength for intermed…
Cotunneling into Kondo systems, where an electron enters a $f$-electron material via a cotunneling process through the local-moment orbital, has been proposed to explain the characteristic lineshapes observed in scanning-tunneling-spectroscopy (STS) experiments. Here we extend the theory of electron cotunneling to Kondo-lattice systems where the bulk hybridization between conduction and $f$ electrons is odd under inversion, being particularly relevant to Kondo insulators. Compared to the case of even hybridization, we show that the interference between normal tunneling and cotunneling processe…
Replacing a magnetic atom by a spinless atom in a heavy fermion compound generates a quantum state often referred to as a 'Kondo-hole'. No experimental imaging has been achieved of the atomic-scale electronic structure of a Kondo-hole, or of their destructive impact (Lawrence JM, et al. (1996) Kondo hole behavior in Ce0. 97La0. 03Pd3. Phys Rev B 53:12559-12562; Bauer ED, et al. (2011) Electronic inhomogeneity in a Kondo lattice. Proc Natl Acad Sci. 108:6857-6861) on the hybridization process between conduction and localized electrons which generates the heavy fermion state. Here we report visu…
A necessary element for the predicted topological state in Kondo insulator SmB$_6$ is the hybridization gap which opens in this compound at low temperatures. In this work, we present a comparative study of the in-gap density of states due to Sm vacancies by Raman scattering spectroscopy and heat capacity for samples where the number of Sm vacancies is equal to or below 1 %. We demonstrate that hybridization gap is very sensitive to the presence of Sm vacancies. At the amount of vacancies above 1 % the gap fills in with impurity states and low temperature heat capacity is enhanced.
A detailed low-energy electronic structure of a Kondo insulator YbB$_{12}$ was revealed by a synergetic combination of ultrahigh-resolution laser photoemission spectroscopy (PES) and time-resolved PES. The former confirmed a 25-meV pseudogap corresponding to the Kondo temperature of this material, and more importantly, it revealed that a 15-meV gap and a Kondo-peak feature developed below a crossover temperature $T^\ast \sim 110$ K. In harmony with this, the latter discovered a very long recombination time exceeding 100 ps below $\sim$$T^\ast$. This is a clear manifestation of photoexcited car…
We study the Kondo resonance in a spin-1/2 single impurity Anderson model with a gapless conduction band using the equation of motion approach in order to obtain the impurity spectral function. We study two different scenarios for gapless systems: a purely power-law energy dependence of the density of states or a constant density of states with a gapless behavior near the Fermi level. We demonstrate that strong electron-electron correlations lead to a sharp peak in the impurity spectral function in the case of a large exchange coupling ($J>J_{c}$) or equivalently, a strong hybridization ($V>V_…
We report the temperature-dependent three-dimensional angle-resolved photoemission spectra of the Kondo semiconductor SmB$_6$. We found a difference in the temperature dependence of the peaks at the X and $Γ$ points, due to hybridization between the Sm 5d conduction band and the nearly localized Sm 4f state. The peak intensity at the X point has the same temperature dependence as the valence transition below 120 K, while that at the $Γ$ point is consistent with the magnetic excitation at Q=(0.5,0.5,0.5) below 30 K. This suggests that the hybridization with the valence transition mainly occurs …
The nature of the second order phase transition that occurs in URu2Si2 at 17.5 K remains puzzling despite intensive research over the past two and half decades. A key question emerging in the field is whether a hybridization gap between the renormalized bands can be identified as the long-sought 'hidden' order parameter. We report on the measurement of a hybridization gap in URu2Si2 employing a spectroscopic technique based on quasiparticle scattering across a ballistic metallic junction. The differential conductance exhibits an asymmetric double-peak structure, a clear signature for a Fano re…
We investigate Kondo physics in a host with a strongly diverging density of states. This study is motivated by a recent work on vacancies in the graphene honeycomb lattice, whose density of states is enhanced at low energies due to potential scattering. The generalized quantum impurity model describing the vacancy is shown to support a spin-1/2 (doublet) Kondo phase. The special role played by a diverging host density of states is examined in detail, with distinctive signatures associated with the powerlaw Kondo effect shown to appear in thermodynamic quantities and the scattering t matrix, wi…
We investigate the electronic structure of a Kondo lattice system, CeCuSb2 exhibiting significant mass enhancement and Kondo-type behavior. We observe multiple features in the hard x-ray photoemission spectra of Ce core levels due to strong final-state effects. The depth-resolved data exhibit a significant change in relative intensity of the features with the surface sensitivity of the probe. The extracted surface and bulk spectral functions are different and exhibit a Kondo-like feature at higher binding energies in addition to the well and poorly screened features. The core-level spectra of …
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 heavy fermion state with Kondo-hybridization (KH), usually manifested in f-electron systems with lanthanide or actinide elements, was recently discovered in several 3d transition metal compounds without f-electrons. However, KH has not yet been observed in 4d/5d transition metal compounds, since more extended 4d/5d orbitals do not usually form flat bands that supply localized electrons appropriate for Kondo pairing. Here, we report a doping- and temperature-dependent angle-resolved photoemission study on 4d Ca2-xSrxRuO4, which shows the signature of KH. We observed a spectral weight transf…
We studied the electronic structure of the Kondo lattice system Ce2Co0.8Si3.2 by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). The spectra obtained below the coherence temperature consist of a Kondo resonance, its spin-orbit partner and a number of dispersing bands. The quasiparticle weight related to the Kondo peak depends strongly on Fermi vectors associated with bulk bands. This indicates a highly anisotropic hybridization between conduction band and 4f electrons - V_{cf} in Ce2Co0.8Si3.2.
Despite of many efforts, we still lack a clear picture on how heavy electrons emerge and develop on the Kondo lattice. Here we introduce a key concept named the hybridization bond phase and propose a scenario based on phase correlation to address this issue. The bond phase is a gauge-invariant quantity combining two onsite hybridization fields mediated by inter-site magnetic correlations. Its probabilistic distribution decays exponentially with site distance, from which a characteristic length scale can be extracted to describe the spatial correlation of Kondo hybridizations. Our calculations …
Field-direction sensitivity of Kondo hybridization in UTe$_2$
NIST Center for Neutron Research（美国国家标准与技术研究院中子研究中心）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Maryland（马里兰大学物理与天文系）；Department of Materials Science, University of Maryland, College Park（马里兰大学帕克分校材料科学系）；Neutron Scattering Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory（橡树岭国家实验室中子散射部）；PSI Center for Neutron and Muon Sciences（瑞士保罗谢勒研究所中子与μ子科学中心）；Physik-Institut, Universität Zürich（苏黎世大学物理学院）
Kondo hybridization in partially filled f-electron systems conveys significant amount of electronic states sharply near the Fermi energy leading to various instabilities from superconductivity to exotic electronic orders. UGe2 is a 5f heavy fermion system, where the Kondo hybridization is interrupted by the formation of two ferromagnetic phases below a 2nd order transition Tc ~ 52 K and a crossover transition Tx ~ 32 K. These two ferromagnetic phases are concomitantly related to a spin-triplet superconductivity that only emerges and persists inside the magnetically ordered phase at high pressu…
We propose that competition between Kondo and magnetic correlations results in a novel universality class for heavy fermion quantum criticality in the presence of strong randomness. Starting from an Anderson lattice model with disorder, we derive an effective local field theory in the dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) approximation, where randomness is introduced into both hybridization and Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) interactions. Performing the saddle-point analysis in the U(1) slave-boson representation, we reveal its phase diagram which shows a quantum phase transition from a spi…
A spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ Kitaev sublattice interacting with a subsystem of spinless fermions is studied on a honeycomb lattice when the fermion band is half filled. The model Hamiltonian describes a topological Kondo lattice with the Kitaev interaction, it is solved exactly by reduction to free Majorana fermions in a static $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge field. An yet unsolved problem of a hybridization of fermions and local moments in the Kondo lattice at low temperatures is solved in the framework of the model proposed. The Kondo hybridization gap is opened and the system is fixed in insulator and spin in…
We report an angle-resolved photoemission (ARPES) study of $β$-YbAlB$_4$, which is known to harbor unconventional quantum criticality (QC) without any tuning. We directly observe a quasiparticle peak (QP), emerging from hybridization, characterized by a binding energy and an onset of coherence both at about 4 meV. This value conforms with a previously observed reduced Kondo scale at about 40 K. Consistency with an earlier study of carriers in $β$-YbAlB$_4$ via the Hall effect strongly suggests that this QP is responsible for the QC in $β$-YbAlB$_4$. A comparison with the sister polymorph $α$-Y…
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 propose a new phenomenological framework for three classes of Kondo lattice materials that incorporates the interplay between the fluctuations associated with the antiferromagnetic quantum critical point and those produced by the hybridization quantum critical point that marks the end of local moment behavior. We show that these fluctuations give rise to two distinct regions of quantum critical scaling: hybridization fluctuations are responsible for the logarithmic scaling in the density of states of the heavy electron Kondo liquid that emerges below the coherence temperature T*; while the …
Mott-Derived Local Moments and Kondo Hybridization in a d-electron Kagome lattice
Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院物理研究所凝聚态物理国家实验室）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；State Key Laboratory of Low Dimensional Quantum Physics, Department of Physics, Tsinghua University（清华大学物理系低维量子物理国家重点实验室）；National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University（南京大学固体微结构物理全国重点实验室及物理学院）；Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院化学物理研究所）
Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院物理研究所凝聚态物理北京实验室）；Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学物理学院）；Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge（剑桥大学卡文迪许实验室）；Department of Condensed Matter Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University（查理大学数学物理系凝聚态物理系）；School of Sciences, Yanshan University（燕山大学理学院）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory（松山湖材料实验室）；Hefei National Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学合肥国家实验室）
SmB6 is a promising candidate for topological Kondo insulator. In this letter, we report ultrafast carrier dynamics of SmB6. Two characteristic temperatures: T1=100 K and T2= 20 K are observed. T1 corresponds to the opening of the f-d hybridization gap revealed by an abrupt disappearance of terahertz f-band plasmon oscillations. Between T1 and T2, a phonon bottleneck effect dominates the photocarrier relaxation processes. Below T2, we observe the formation of in-gap states, which are strongly affected by optically injected hot electrons and the transient electron temperature change.
As an exemplary Kondo insulator, SmB6 has been studied for several decades; however, direct evidence for the development of the Kondo coherent state and the evolution of the electronic structure in the material has not been obtained due to the rather complicated electronic and thermal transport behavior. Recently, these open questions attracted increasing attention as the emergence of a time-reversal invariant topological surface state in the Kondo insulator has been suggested. Here, we use point-contact spectroscopy to reveal the temperature dependence of the electronic states in SmB6. We dem…
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 …
To discuss Kondo effects of a magnetic ion vibrating in the sea of conduction electrons, a generalized Anderson model is derived. The model includes a new channel of hybridization associated with phonon emission or absorption. In the simplest case of the localized electron orbital with the s-wave symmetry, hybridization with p-waves becomes possible. Interesting interplay among the conventional s-wave Kondo effect and the p-wave one and the Yu-Anderson type Kondo effect is found and the ground state phase diagram is determined by using the numerical renormalization group method. Two different …
The periodic Anderson lattice model for the crystalline electric field (CEF)split 4f quartet states is used to describe the Yb-based Kondo insulators/semiconductors. In the slave-boson mean-field approximation, we derive the hybridized quasiparticle bands, and find that decreasing the hybridization difference of the two CEF quartets may induce an insulator-to-metal phase transition. The resulting metallic phase has a hole and an electron Fermi pockets. Such a phase transition may be realized experimentally by applying pressure, reducing the difference in hybridization of the two CEF quartets.
Our single crystal study reveals that PrTr2Al20 (Tr = Ti and V) provides the first examples of a cubic Γ3 nonmagnetic ground doublet system that shows the Kondo effect including a -ln T dependent resistivity. The Γ3 quadrupolar moments in PrV2Al20 induce anomalous metallic behavior through hybridization with conduction electrons, such as T^{1/2} dependent resistivity and susceptibility below ~ 20 K down to its ordering temperature T_O = 0.6 K. In PrTi2Al20, however, quadrupoles are well-localized and exhibit an order at T_O = 2.0 K. Stronger Kondo coupling in PrV2Al20 than in PrTi2Al20 suppres…
We study, using high-resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, the evolution of the electronic structure in URu2Si2 at the Gamma, Z and X high-symmetry points from the high-temperature Kondo-screened regime to the low-temperature `hidden-order' (HO) state. At all temperatures and symmetry points, we find structures resulting from the interaction between heavy and light bands, related to the Kondo lattice formation. At the X point, we directly measure a hybridization gap of 11 meV already open at temperatures above the ordered phase. Strikingly, we find that while the HO induces pro…
Motivated by recent photoemission and pump-probe experiments, we report determinant Quantum Monte Carlo simulations of hybridization fluctuations in the half-filled periodic Anderson model. A tentative phase diagram is constructed based solely on hybridization fluctuation spectra and reveals a crossover regime between an unhybridized selective Mott state and a fully hybridized Kondo insulating state. This intermediate phase exhibits nonlocal hybridization fluctuations and consequentially the so-called "band bending" and a direct hybridization gap as observed in angle-resolved photoemission spe…
We use the density matrix renormalization group method to study the interplay of the localized and itinerant behaviors in the one-dimensional Kondo-Heisenberg model. We find signatures of simultaneously localized and itinerant behaviors of the local spins and attribute this duality to their simultaneous entanglement within the spin chain and with conduction electrons due to incomplete hybridization. We propose a microscopic definition of the hybridization parameter that measures this "partial" itinerancy. Our results provide a microscopic support for the dual nature of f-electrons and the resu…
In heavy fermions the relaxation dynamics of photoexcited carriers has been found to be governed by the low energy indirect gap, E$_{g}$, resulting from hybridization between localized moments and conduction band electrons. Here, carrier relaxation dynamics in a prototype Kondo insulator YbB${}_{12}$ is studied over large range of temperatures and over three orders of magnitude. We utilize the intrinsic non-linearity of dynamics to quantitatively determine microscopic parameters, such as electron-hole recombination rate. The extracted value reveals that hybridization is accompanied by a strong…
We propose a static auxiliary field approximation to study the hybridization physics of Kondo systems without the sign problem and use the mutual information to measure the intersite hybridization correlations. Our method takes full account of the spatial fluctuations of the hybridization fields at all orders and overcomes the artificial (first-order) phase transition predicted in the mean-field approximation. When applied to the two-impurity Kondo model, it reveals a logarithmically divergent amplitude mutual information near the so-called "Varma-Jones" fixed point and a large phase mutual in…
The Kondo semiconductor CeOs$_{2}$Al$_{10}$ exhibits an antiferromagnetic (AFM) order at $T_\mathrm{N}= 28.5$ K, whose temperature is unexpectedly high for the small ordered moment of $0.3$ $μ_\mathrm{B}/$Ce. We have studied the effects of electron- and hole-doping on the hybridization gap and AFM order by measuring the magnetization $M$, magnetic susceptibility $χ$, electrical resistivity $ρ$, and specific heat $C$ on single crystals of Ce(Os$_{1-x}$Ir$_{x}$)$_{2}$Al$_{10}$($x \le 0.15$) and Ce(Os$_{1-y}$Re$_{y}$)$_{2}$Al$_{10}$($y \le 0.1$). The results of $M (B)$ indicates that the AFM orde…
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…
Abnormal electronic properties of complex systems require new ideas concerning explanation of their behavior and possibility of realization. In this acticle we show that a colossal magnetoresistance is realized in the state of the topological Kondo insulator, that is similar to the Kondo insulator state in the Kondo lattice. The mechanism of the phenomenon is the following: in the spin gapless phase an external magnetic field induces the gap in the spectrum of spin excitations, the gap in the spectrum of fermions is opened due to a hybridization between spin and fermion subsystems at half fill…
The "failed Kondo insulator" CeNiSn has long been suspected to be a nodal metal, with a node in the hybridization matrix elements. Here we carry out a series of Nernst effect experiments to delineate whether the severely anisotropic magnetotransport coefficients do indeed derive from a nodal metal or can simply be explained by a highly anisotropic Fermi surface. Our experiments reveal that despite an almost 20-fold anisotropy in the Hall conductivity, the large Nernst signal is isotropic. Taken in conjunction with the magnetotransport anisotropy, these results provide strong support for an iso…
We report 209Bi NMR and NQR measurements on a single crystal of the Kondo insulator U3Bi4Ni3. The 209Bi nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate ($T_1^{-1}$) shows activated behavior and is well-fit by a spin gap of 220 K. The 209Bi Knight shift (K) exhibits a strong temperature dependence arising from 5f electrons, in which K is negative at high temperatures and increases as the temperature is lowered. Below 50 K, K shows a broad maximum and decreases slightly upon further cooling. Our data provide insight into the evolution of the hyperfine fields in a fully gapped Kondo insulator based on 5f el…
We consider the Kondo effect arising from a hydrogen impurity in graphene. As a first approximation, the strong covalent bond to a carbon atom removes that carbon atom without breaking the $C_{3}$ rotation symmetry, and we only retain the Hubbard interaction on the three nearest neighbors of the removed carbon atom which then behave as magnetic impurities. These three impurity spins are coupled to three conduction channels with definite helicity, two of which support a diverging local density of states (LDOS) $\propto 1/ [ | ω\ | \ln ^{2}( Λ/| ω\ | \ ) \ ] $ near the Dirac point $ω\rightarrow …
Complexity in the hybridization physics revealed by depth-resolved photoemission spectroscopy of single crystalline novel Kondo lattice systems, CeCuX$_2$ (X = As/Sb)
The recent discovery of topological Kondo insulating behaviour in strongly correlated electron systems has generated considerable interest in Kondo insulators both experimentally and theoretically. The Kondo semiconductors CeT2Al10 (T=Fe, Ru and Os) possessing a c-f hybridization gap have received considerable attention recently because of the unexpected high magnetic ordering temperature of CeRu2Al10 (TN=27 K) and CeOs2Al10 (TN=28.5 K) and the Kondo insulating behaviour observed in the valence fluctuating compound CeFe2Al10 with a paramagnetic ground state down to 50 mK. We are investigating …
We report a detailed and comparative study of the single crystal CeCoInGa$_3$ in both experiment and theory. Resistivity measurements reveal the typical behavior of Kondo lattice with the onset temperature of coherence, $T^*\approx 50\,$K. The magnetic specific heat can be well fitted using a spin-fluctuation model at low temperatures, yielding a large Sommerfeld coefficient, $γ\approx172\,$mJ/mol K$^2$ at 6 K, suggesting that this is a heavy-fermion compound with a pronounced coherence effect. The magnetic susceptibility exhibits a broad field-independent peak at $T_χ$ and shows an obvious an…
