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arXiv · cond-mat/0205498

Ground State and Spectral Properties of a Quantum Impurity in d-Wave Superconductors

Abstract

The variational approach of Gunnarsson and Schönhammer to the Anderson impurity model is generalized to study d-wave superconductors in the presence of dilute spin-1/2 impurities. We show that the local moment is screened when the hybridization exceeds a nonzero critical value at which the ground state changes from a spin doublet to a spin singlet. The electron spectral functions are calculated in both phases. We find that while a Kondo resonance develops above the Fermi level in the singlet phase, the spectral function exhibits a low-energy spectral peak below the Fermi level in the spin doublet phase. The origin of such a ``virtual Kondo resonance'' is the existence of low-lying collective excitations in the spin-singlet sector. We discuss our results in connection to recent spectroscopic experiments on Zn doped high-T$_c$ superconductors.

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BibTeXRIS

Xi Dai, Ziqiang Wang. 2003-06-03. Ground State and Spectral Properties of a Quantum Impurity in d-Wave Superconductors. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.67.180507

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