No Arabic abstract
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 the local-moment spins from the conduction electrons, and lead to a magnetically correlated metal. We also study the momentum distribution of the single-particle excitations in the Kondo insulating state, and illustrate how Fermi-surface-like features emerge as a precursor to the actual Fermi surfaces of the Kondo-destroyed metals. We discuss the implications of our results for Kondo insulators including SmB$_6$.
We investigate the 2D ferromagnetic Kondo lattice model for manganites with classical corespins at Hunds rule coupling J_H=6, with antiferromagnetic superexchange 0.03 < J < 0.05. We employ canonical and grand canonical unbiased Monte Carlo simulations and find paramagnetism, weak ferromagnetism and the Flux phase, depending on doping and on J. The observed single particle spectrum in the flux phase differs from the idealized infinite lattice case, but agrees well with an idealized finite lattice case with thermal fluctuations.
Topological Kondo insulators are a rare example of an interaction-enabled topological phase of matter in three-dimensional crystals - making them an intriguing but also hard case for theoretical studies. Here, we aim to advance their theoretical understanding by solving the paradigmatic two-band model for topological Kondo-insulators using a fully spin-rotation invariant slave-boson treatment. Within a mean-field approximation, we map out the magnetic phase diagram and characterize both antiferromagnetic and paramagnetic phases by their topological properties. Among others, we identify an antiferromagnetic insulator that shows, for suitable crystal terminations, topologically protected hinge modes. Furthermore, Gaussian fluctuations of the slave boson fields around their mean-field value are included in order to establish the stability of the mean-field solution through computation of the full dynamical susceptibility.
Many correlated metallic materials are described by Landau Fermi-liquid theory at low energies, but for Hund metals the Fermi-liquid coherence scale $T_{text{FL}}$ is found to be surprisingly small. In this Letter, we study the simplest impurity model relevant for Hund metals, the three-channel spin-orbital Kondo model, using the numerical renormalization group (NRG) method and compute its global phase diagram. In this framework, $T_{text{FL}}$ becomes arbitrarily small close to two new quantum critical points (QCPs) which we identify by tuning the spin or spin-orbital Kondo couplings into the ferromagnetic regimes. We find quantum phase transitions to a singular Fermi-liquid or a novel non-Fermi-liquid phase. The new non-Fermi-liquid phase shows frustrated behavior involving alternating overscreenings in spin and orbital sectors, with universal power laws in the spin ($omega^{-1/5}$), orbital ($omega^{1/5}$) and spin-orbital ($omega^1$) dynamical susceptibilities. These power laws, and the NRG eigenlevel spectra, can be fully understood using conformal field theory arguments, which also clarify the nature of the non-Fermi-liquid phase.
Motivated by the observation of light surface states in SmB6, we examine the effects of surface Kondo breakdown in topological Kondo insulators. We present both numerical and analytic results which show that the decoupling of the localized moments at the surface disturbs the compensation between light and heavy electrons and dopes the Dirac cone. Dispersion of these uncompensated surface states are dominated by inter-site hopping, which leads to a much lighter quasiparticles. These surface states are also highly durable against the effects of surface magnetism and decreasing thickness of the sample.
Strong electronic interactions and spin orbit coupling can be conducive for realizing novel broken symmetry phases supporting quasiparticles with nontrivial band topology. 227 pyrochlore iridates provide a suitable material platform for studying such emergent phenomena where both topology and competing orders play important roles. In contrast to the most members of this material class, which are thought to display all-in all-out (AIAO) type magnetically ordered low-temperature insulating ground states, Pr$_2$Ir$_2$O$_7$ remains metallic while exhibiting spin ice (SI) correlations at low temperatures. Additionally, this is the only 227 iridate compound, which exhibits a large anomalous Hall effect (AHE) along [1,1,1] direction below 1.5 K, without possessing any measurable magnetic moment. By focusing on the normal state of 227 iridates, described by a parabolic semimetal with quadratic band touching, we use renormalization group analysis, mean-field theory, and phenomenological Landau theory as three complementary methods to construct a global phase diagram in the presence of generic local interactions among itinerant electrons of Ir ions. While the global phase diagram supports several competing multipolar orders, motivated by the phenomenology of 227 iridates we particularly emphasize the competition between AIAO and SI orders and how it can cause a mixed phase with three-in one-out (3I1O) spin configurations. In terms of topological properties of Weyl quasiparticles of the 3I1O state, we provide an explanation for the magnitude and the direction of the observed AHE in Pr$_2$Ir$_2$O$_7$. We propose a strain induced enhancement of the onset temperature for AHE in thin films of Pr$_2$Ir$_2$O$_7$ and additional experiments for studying competing orders in the vicinity of the metal-insulator transition.