We investigate the thermoelectric properties of PbTe doped with a small concentration $x$ of Tl impurities acting as acceptors and described by Anderson impurities with negative on-site (effective) interaction. The resulting charge Kondo effect natur
ally accounts for a number of the low temperature anomalies in this system, including the unusual doping dependence of the carrier concentration, the Fermi level pinning and the self-compensation effect. The Kondo anomalies in the low temperature resistivity at temperatures $Tleq 10, {rm K}$ and the $x$-dependence of the residual resistivity are also in good agreement with experiment. Our model also captures the qualitative aspects of the thermopower at higher temperatures $T>300, {rm K}$ for high dopings ($x>0.6%$) where transport is expected to be largely dominated by carriers in the heavy hole band of PbTe.
We introduce a method to obtain the specific heat of quantum impurity models via a direct calculation of the impurity internal energy requiring only the evaluation of local quantities within a single numerical renormalization group (NRG) calculation
for the total system. For the Anderson impurity model, we show that the impurity internal energy can be expressed as a sum of purely local static correlation functions and a term that involves also the impurity Green function. The temperature dependence of the latter can be neglected in many cases, thereby allowing the impurity specific heat, $C_{rm imp}$, to be calculated accurately from local static correlation functions; specifically via $C_{rm imp}=frac{partial E_{rm ionic}}{partial T} + 1/2frac{partial E_{rm hyb}}{partial T}$, where $E_{rm ionic}$ and $E_{rm hyb}$ are the energies of the (embedded) impurity and the hybridization energy, respectively. The term involving the Green function can also be evaluated in cases where its temperature dependence is non-negligible, adding an extra term to $C_{rm imp}$. For the non-degenerate Anderson impurity model, we show by comparison with exact Bethe ansatz calculations that the results recover accurately both the Kondo induced peak in the specific heat at low temperatures as well as the high temperature peak due to the resonant level. The approach applies to multiorbital and multichannel Anderson impurity models with arbitrary local Coulomb interactions. An application to the Ohmic two state system and the anisotropic Kondo model is also given, with comparisons to Bethe ansatz calculations. The new approach could also be of interest within other impurity solvers, e.g., within quantum Monte Carlo techniques.
The transport coefficients of the Anderson model require knowledge of both the temperature and frequency dependence of the single--particle spectral densities and consequently have proven difficult quantities to calculate. Here we show how these quan
tities can be calculated via an extension of Wilsons numerical renormalization group method. Accurate results are obtained in all parameter regimes and for the full range of temperatures of interest ranging from the high temperature perturbative regime $T>>T_{K}$, through the cross--over region $Tapprox T_{K}$, and into the low temperature strong coupling regime $T<<T_{K}$. The Fermi liquid relations for the $T^2$ coefficient of the resistivity and the linear coefficient of the thermopower are satisfied to a high degree of accuracy. The techniques used here provide a new highly accurate approach to strongly correlated electrons in high dimensions.
We investigate with the aid of numerical renormalization group techniques the thermoelectric properties of a molecular quantum dot described by the negative-U Anderson model. We show that the charge Kondo effect provides a mechanism for enhanced ther
moelectric power via a correlation induced asymmetry in the spectral function close to the Fermi level. We show that this effect results in a dramatic enhancement of the Kondo induced peak in the thermopower of negative-U systems with Seebeck coefficients exceeding 50$mu V/K$ over a wide range of gate voltages.
We exploit the decoherence of electrons due to magnetic impurities, studied via weak localization, to resolve a longstanding question concerning the classic Kondo systems of Fe impurities in the noble metals gold and silver: which Kondo-type model yi
elds a realistic description of the relevant multiple bands, spin and orbital degrees of freedom? Previous studies suggest a fully screened spin $S$ Kondo model, but the value of $S$ remained ambiguous. We perform density functional theory calculations that suggest $S = 3/2$. We also compare previous and new measurements of both the resistivity and decoherence rate in quasi 1-dimensional wires to numerical renormalization group predictions for $S=1/2,1$ and 3/2, finding excellent agreement for $S=3/2$.
