No Arabic abstract
We study the finite-frequency inter-band transition peak in the optical conductivity of a heavy fermion system close to a Kondo breakdown quantum critical point, where the lattice Kondo temperature vanishes. As the system approaches the phase transition from the heavy Fermi liquid side, we find a new cross-over regime where the peak position is related to, but is not directly proportional to, the lattice Kondo scale. In particular, the position of the peak moves to lower energies, but remains finite at the critical point. On the other hand, the peak value changes non-monotonically and eventually the peak disappears at the quantum critical point, indicating the decoupling of the narrow band of f-electrons from the conduction band. We argue that these are unique signatures of a Kondo breakdown transition, and therefore can be useful to distinguish it experimentally from a spin density wave instability.
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.
We examine the exchange Hamiltonian for magnetic adatoms in graphene with localized inner shell states. On symmetry grounds, we predict the existence of a class of orbitals that lead to a distinct class of quantum critical points in graphene, where the Kondo temperature scales as $T_{K}propto|J-J_{c}|^{1/3}$ near the critical coupling $J_{c}$, and the local spin is effectively screened by a emph{super-ohmic} bath. For this class, the RKKY interaction decays spatially with a fast power law $sim1/R^{7}$. Away from half filling, we show that the exchange coupling in graphene can be controlled across the quantum critical region by gating. We propose that the vicinity of the Kondo quantum critical point can be directly accessed with scanning tunneling probes and gating.
The observation of quantum criticality in diverse classes of strongly correlated electron systems has been instrumental in establishing ordering principles, discovering new phases, and identifying the relevant degrees of freedom and interactions. At focus so far have been insulators and metals. Semimetals, which are of great current interest as candidate phases with nontrivial topology, are much less explored in experiments. Here we study the Kondo semimetal CeRu$_4$Sn$_6$ by magnetic susceptibility, specific heat, and inelastic neutron scattering experiments. The power-law divergence of the magnetic Grunesien ratio reveals that, surprisingly, this compound is quantum critical without tuning. The dynamical energy over temperature scaling in the neutron response, seen throughout the Brillouin zone, as well as the temperature dependence of the static uniform susceptibility indicate that temperature is the only energy scale in the criticality. Such behavior, which has been associated with Kondo destruction quantum criticality in metallic systems, may well be generic in the semimetal setting.
Recent quantum oscillation experiments on SmB$_6$ pose a paradox, for while the angular dependence of the oscillation frequencies suggest a 3D bulk Fermi surface, SmB$_6$ remains robustly insulating to very high magnetic fields. Moreover, a sudden low temperature upturn in the amplitude of the oscillations raises the possibility of quantum criticality. Here we discuss recently proposed mechanisms for this effect, contrasting bulk and surface scenarios. We argue that topological surface states permit us to reconcile the various data with bulk transport and spectroscopy measurements, interpreting the low temperature upturn in the quantum oscillation amplitudes as a result of surface Kondo breakdown and the high frequency oscillations as large topologically protected orbits around the X point. We discuss various predictions that can be used to test this theory.
We theoretically investigate the non-equilibrium quantum phase transition in a generic setup: the pseudogap Kondo model where a quantum dot couples to two-left (L) and right (R)-voltage-biased fermionic leads with power-law density of states (DOS) with respect to their Fermi levels {mu}_L/R, {rho}_c,L(R) ({omega}) propto |{omega} - {mu}_L(R) |r, and 0 < r < 1. In equilibrium (zero bias voltage) and for 0 < r < 1/2, with increasing Kondo correlations, in the presence of particle-hole symmetry this model exhibits a quantum phase transition from a unscreened local moment (LM) phase to the Kondo phase. Via a controlled frequency-dependent renormalization group (RG) approach, we compute analytically and numerically the non-equilibrium conductance, conduction electron T-matrix and local spin susceptibility at finite bias voltages near criticality. The current-induced decoherence shows distinct nonequilibrium scaling, leading to new universal non-equilibrium quantum critical behaviors in the above observables. Relevance of our results for the experiments is discussed.