arXiv subjects

Matthias Vojta

Publications and source records attributed to Matthias Vojta.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

arXiv2011

Two-channel pseudogap Kondo and Anderson models: Quantum phase transitions and non-Fermi liquids

We discuss the two-channel Kondo problem with a pseudogap density of states, $ρ(\w)\propto|\w|^r$, of the bath fermions. Combining both analytical and numerical renormalization group techniques, we characterize the impurity phases and quantum phase transitions of the relevant Kondo and Anderson models. The line of stable points, corresponding to the overscreened non-Fermi liquid behavior of the metallic $r=0$ case, is replaced by a stable particle-hole symmetric intermediate-coupling fixed point for $0 \rmax$, this non-Fermi liquid phase disappears, and instead a critical fixed point with an emergent spin--channel symmetry appears, controlling the quantum phase transition between two phases with stable spin and channel moments, respectively. We propose low-energy field theories to describe the quantum phase transitions, all being formulated in fermionic variables. We employ epsilon expansion techniques to calculate critical properties near the critical dimensions $r=0$ and $r=1$, the latter being potentially relevant for two-channel Kondo impurities in neutral graphene. We find the analytical results to be in excellent agreement with those obtained from applying Wilson's numerical renormalization group technique.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2011

Finite-temperature spectra and quasiparticle interference in Kondo lattices: From light electrons to coherent heavy quasiparticles

Recent advances in scanning tunneling spectroscopy performed on heavy-fermion metals provide a window onto local electronic properties of composite heavy-electron quasiparticles. Here we theoretically investigate the energy and temperature evolution of single-particle spectra and their quasiparticle interference caused by point-like impurities in the framework of a periodic Anderson model. By numerically solving dynamical-mean-field-theory equations, we are able to access all temperatures and to capture the crossover from weakly interacting c and f electrons to fully coherent heavy quasiparticles. Remarkably, this crossover occurs in a dynamical fashion at an energy-dependent crossover temperature. We study in detail the associated Fermi-surface reconstruction and characterize the incoherent regime near the Kondo temperature. Finally, we link our results to current heavy-fermion experiments.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2011

Fractional impurity moments in two-dimensional non-collinear magnets

We study dilute magnetic impurities and vacancies in two-dimensional frustrated magnets with non-collinear order. Taking the triangular-lattice Heisenberg model as an example, we use quasiclassical methods to determine the impurity contributions to the magnetization and susceptibility. Most importantly, each impurity moment is not quantized, but receives non-universal screening corrections due to local relief of frustration. At finite temperatures, where bulk long-range order is absent, this implies an impurity-induced magnetic response of Curie form, with a prefactor corresponding to a fractional moment per impurity. We also discuss the behavior in an applied magnetic field, where we find a singular linear-response limit for overcompensated impurities, and propose experiments to test our theory.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2011

Kondo lattices with inequivalent local moments: Competitive vs. co-operative Kondo screening

While standard heavy fermion metals feature a single spin-1/2 local moment per unit cell, more complicated systems with multiple distinct local moments have been synthesized as well, with Ce_3Pd_20(Si,Ge)_6 being one example. Here, we discuss the physics of a Kondo lattice model with two local-moment sublattices, coupled with different Kondo couplings to conduction electrons. The phase diagram will be strongly modified from that of the standard Kondo lattice if the characteristic screening temperatures of the distinct moments are well separated. Therefore, we investigate the interplay between the two Kondo effects using a local self-energy approximation via slave bosons. We find that the two Kondo effects can either compete or co-operate depending on the conduction-band filling. In the regime of competition, small differences in the two Kondo couplings can lead to huge differences in the respective Kondo scales, due to non-trivial many-body effects. We also study the low-temperature properties of the collective heavy Fermi-liquid state and propose a connection to depleted Kondo lattice systems.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2010

Zeeman-driven Lifshitz transition: A scenario for the Fermi-surface reconstruction in YbRh2Si2

The heavy-fermion metal YbRh2Si2 displays a field-driven quantum phase transition where signatures of a Fermi-surface reconstruction have been identified, often interpreted as breakdown of the Kondo effect. We argue that instead many properties of the material can be consistently described assuming a Zeeman-driven Lifshitz transition of narrow heavy-fermion bands. Using a suitable quasiparticle model, we find a smeared jump in the Hall constant and lines of maxima in susceptibility and specific heat, very similar to experimental data. An intermediate non-Fermi liquid regime emerges due to the small effective Fermi energy near the transition. Further experiments to discriminate the different scenarios are proposed.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2010

Stripe order and quasiparticle Nernst effect in cuprate superconductors

After a brief review of current ideas on stripe order in cuprate high-temperature superconductors, we discuss the quasiparticle Nernst effect in the cuprates, with focus on its evolution in non-superconducting stripe and related nematic states. In general, we find the Nernst signal to be strongly enhanced by nearby van-Hove singularities and Lifshitz transitions in the band structure, implying that phases with translation symmetry breaking often lead to a large quasiparticle Nernst effect due to the presence of multiple small Fermi pockets. Open orbits may contribute to the Nernst signal as well, but do so in a strongly anisotropic fashion. We discuss our results in the light of recent proposals for a specific Lifshitz transition in underdoped YBCO and make predictions for the doping dependence of the Nernst signal.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2010

Tendencies toward nematic order in YBa2Cu3O6+x: Uniform distortion vs. incipient charge stripes

Recent neutron scattering and transport data obtained on underdoped YBCO, with strong signatures of rotation symmetry breaking at low temperatures, point toward electron-nematic order in the charge sector. Such order may originate from a uniform distortion with d-wave symmetry or as a precursor of a uni-directional stripe phase. Here, we discuss whether the neutron scattering data can be linked to incipient charge stripes. We employ and extend a phenomenological model for collective spin and charge fluctuations and analyze the resulting spin excitation spectrum under the influence of lattice anisotropies. Our results show that the experimentally observed temperature-dependent magnetic incommensurability is compatible with a scenario of incipient stripes, the temperature dependence being due to the temperature variation of both strength and correlation length of the charge stripes. Finally, we propose further experiments to distinguish the possible theoretical scenarios.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2010

Orbital-selective Mott transitions: Heavy fermions and beyond

Quantum phase transitions in metals are often accompanied by violations of Fermi liquid behavior in the quantum critical regime. Particularly fascinating are transitions beyond the Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson concept of a local order parameter. The breakdown of the Kondo effect in heavy-fermion metals constitutes a prime example of such a transition. Here, the strongly correlated f electrons become localized and disappear from the Fermi surface, implying that the transition is equivalent to an orbital-selective Mott transition, as has been discussed for multi-band transition-metal oxides. In this article, available theoretical descriptions for orbital-selective Mott transitions will be reviewed, with an emphasis on conceptual aspects like the distinction between different low-temperature phases and the structure of the global phase diagram. Selected results for quantum critical properties will be listed as well. Finally, a brief overview is given on experiments which have been interpreted in terms of orbital-selective Mott physics.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2010

Gate-controlled Kondo screening in graphene: Quantum criticality and electron-hole asymmetry

Magnetic impurities in neutral graphene provide a realization of the pseudogap Kondo model, which displays a quantum phase transition between phases with screened and unscreened impurity moment. Here, we present a detailed study of the pseudogap Kondo model with finite chemical potential mu. While carrier doping restores conventional Kondo screening at lowest energies, properties of the quantum critical fixed point turn out to influence the behavior over a large parameter range. Most importantly, the Kondo temperature T_K shows an extreme asymmetry between electron and hole doping. At criticality, depending on the sign of mu, T_K follows either the scaling prediction T_K ~ |mu| with a universal prefactor, or T_K ~ |mu|^x with x = 2.6. This asymmetry between electron and hole doping extends well outside the quantum critical regime and also implies a qualitative difference in the shape of the tunneling spectra for both signs of mu.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2009

Nernst effect anisotropy as a sensitive probe of Fermi surface distortions from electron-nematic order

We analyze the thermoelectric response in layered metals with spontaneously broken rotation symmetry. We identify the anisotropy of the quasiparticle Nernst signal as an extremely sensitive probe of Fermi surface distortions characteristic of the ordered state. This is due to a subtle interplay of different transport anisotropies which become additionally enhanced near van-Hove singularities. Applied to recent experiments, our results reinforce the proposal that the underdoped cuprate superconductor YBCO displays such ``electron-nematic'' order in the pseudogap regime.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2009

Quasiparticle Nernst effect in stripe-ordered cuprates

Experiments on underdoped cuprate superconductors suggest an intricate relation between the normal-state Nernst effect and stripe order: The Nernst signal appears enhanced near 1/8 hole doping and its onset temperature scales with the stripe-ordering temperature over some range of doping. Here, we employ a phenomenological quasiparticle model to calculate the normal state Nernst signal in the presence of stripe order. We find that Fermi pockets caused by translational symmetry breaking lead to a strongly enhanced Nernst signal with a sign depending on the modulation period of the ordered state and other details of the Fermi surface. This implies differences between antiferromagnetic and charge-only stripes We compare our findings with recent data from Nd-LSCO and YBCO.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2009

The mass-flow error in the Numerical Renormalization Group method and the critical behavior of the sub-ohmic spin-boson model

We discuss a particular source of error in the Numerical Renormalization Group (NRG) method for quantum impurity problems, which is related to a renormalization of impurity parameters due to the bath propagator. At any step of the NRG calculation, this renormalization is only partially taken into account, leading to systematic variation of the impurity parameters along the flow. This effect can cause qualitatively incorrect results when studying quantum critical phenomena, as it leads to an implicit variation of the phase transition's control parameter as function of the temperature and thus to an unphysical temperature dependence of the order-parameter mass. We demonstrate the mass-flow effect for bosonic impurity models with a power law bath spectrum, J(w) ~ w^s, namely the dissipative harmonic oscillator and the spin-boson model. We propose an extension of the NRG to correct the mass-flow error. Using this, we find unambiguous signatures of a Gaussian critical fixed point in the spin-boson model for s<1/2, consistent with mean-field behavior as expected from quantum-to-classical mapping.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2009

Non-equilibrium magnetization dynamics of ferromagnetically coupled Kondo spins

An analytical description of non-equilibrium phenomena in interacting quantum systems is rarely possible. Here we present one example where such a description can be achieved, namely the ferromagnetic Kondo model. In equilibrium, this model is tractable via perturbative renormalization-group techniques. We employ a recently developed extension of the flow-equation method to calculate the non-equilibrium decay of the local magnetization at zero temperature. The flow equations admit analytical solutions which become exact at short and long times, in the latter case revealing that the system always retains a memory of its initial state.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2009

Inter-layer Josephson coupling in stripe-ordered superconducting cuprates

Motivated by experiments on LBCO-1/8 which suggest that stripe order co-exists with two-dimensional pairing without inter-layer phase coherence over an extended range of temperatures, we determine the inter-layer Josephson coupling in the presence of stripe order. We employ a mean-field description of bond-centered stripes, with a zero-momentum superconducting condensate and alternating stripe directions pinned by the low-temperature tetragonal (LTT) lattice structure. We show that the Fermi-surface reconstruction arising from strong stripe order can suppress the Josephson coupling between adjacent layers by more than an order of magnitude.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2009

Quantum magnets with weakly confined spinons: Multiple length scales and quantum impurities

In magnets with strong quantum fluctuations, paramagnetic ground states with or without confinement of spinon excitations can be realized. Here we discuss the physics of the confined phase in the vicinity of a confinement--deconfinement transition: This regime, likely relevant to a multitude of frustrated spin systems, is characterized by multiple length scales: In addition to the magnetic correlation length, a confinement length can be defined, which can be probed, e.g., by local static measurements near non-magnetic impurities. We illustrate the ideas by explicit calculations for dimerized spin chains, but our qualitative results remain valid in higher dimensions as well. In particular, we study crossover from weak to strong confinement visible in the antiferromagnetic polarization cloud around a non-magnetic impurity. We also discuss the effective magnetic interaction between impurities, relevant for impurity-induced magnetic order, and consequences for nuclear magnetic resonance and neutron scattering experiments.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2009

Lattice symmetry breaking in cuprate superconductors: Stripes, nematics, and superconductivity

This article will give an overview on both theoretical and experimental developments concerning states with lattice symmetry breaking in the cuprate high-temperature superconductors. Recent experiments have provided evidence for states with broken rotation as well as translation symmetry, and will be discussed in terms of nematic and stripe physics. Of particular importance here are results obtained using the techniques of neutron and x-ray scattering and scanning tunneling spectroscopy. Ideas on the origin of lattice-symmetry-broken states will be reviewed, and effective models accounting for various experimentally observed phenomena will be summarized. These include both weak-coupling and strong-coupling approaches, with a discussion on their distinctions and connections. The collected experimental data indicate that the tendency toward uni-directional stripe-like ordering is common to underdoped cuprates, but becomes weaker with increasing number of adjacent CuO_2 layers.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2009

Quantum phase transitions in the sub-ohmic spin-boson model: Failure of the quantum-classical mapping

The effective theories for many quantum phase transitions can be mapped onto those of classical transitions. Here we show that such a mapping fails for the sub-ohmic spin-boson model which describes a two-level system coupled to a bosonic bath with power-law spectral density, J(omega) ~ omega^s. Using an epsilon expansion we prove that this model has a quantum transition controlled by an interacting fixed point at small s, and support this by numerical calculations. In contrast, the corresponding classical long-range Ising model is known to have an upper-critical dimension at s = 1/2, with mean-field transition behavior controlled by a non-interacting fixed point for 0 < s < 1/2. The failure of the quantum-classical mapping is argued to arise from the long-ranged interaction in imaginary time in the quantum model.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2009

Non-equilibrium transport at a dissipative quantum phase transition

We pioneerly investigate the non-equilibrium transport near a quantum phase transition in a generic and relatively simple case model, the dissipative resonant level model, that has many ramifications in nanosystems. We formulate a rigorous mapping and apply a controlled frequency-dependent renormalization group approach to compute the non-equilibrium current in the presence of a finite bias voltage V. For V -> 0, we find that the conductance has its well-known equilibrium form, while it displays a distinct non-equilibrium profile at finite voltage.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗