arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to P. Coleman.
Although the concept of a quantum phase transition has been known since the nineteen seventies, their importance as a source of radical transformation in metallic properties has only recently been appreciated. A quantum critical point forms an essential singularity in the phase diagram of correlated matter. We discus new insights into the nature of this phenomenon recently gained from experiments in heavy electron materials.
Motivated by experiment, we argue that the enigmatic hidden order in $URu_2Si_2$ demands a dual description that encompasses both its itinerant and its local aspects. A combination of symmetry considerations and observation allow us to rule out a number of possibilities. The two remaining scenarios, the quadrupolar charge density wave and the orbital antiferromagnet, are discussed and experiments are suggested to select between these proposals.
We review the anomalous properties of heavy fermion compounds like CeCu$_{6-x}$Au$_x$ or CeMIn$_5$ close to a zero temperature phase transition called a quantum critical point. Anomalous behavior of the resistivity, specific heat and magnetic properties observed in various compounds suggests a fundamental breakdown of the Fermi liquid theory. Recent measurements on YbRh$_2$Si$_2$, field-tuned through the quantum critical point, provide interesting insights on the evolution of the Fermi liquid close to criticality. We discuss the possibility of a kind of spin-charge separation at the quantum critical point and make some remarks about its possible link with the underscreened Kondo model.
We propose a two-stage spin quenching scenario for the unusual heavy fermion state realized in the mixed valent metal LiV$_2$O$_4$. In this theory, local valence fluctuations are responsible for the formation of partially quenched, spin 1/2 moments below room temperature. Frustration of the intersite spin couplings then drives the system to produce the heavy Fermi liquid seen at low temperatures. The anomalous resistivity and the sign change of the Hall constant can be understood naturally within this model, which also predicts a unique symmetry for the heavy quasiparticle bands that may be observed in de Haas-van Alphen experiments.
We present the simplest model to which one can apply the supersymmetric Hubbard operators recently introduced. For the atomic model, $H=-E_d X_{00}$, where $X_{00} = |0><0|$ is a Hubbard operator and $E_d$ is the energy of the localized spin level, we show how one can develop exact solutions for the entropy and heat capacity as a function of temperature. With this gold standard we are able to develop a controlled approximation scheme to field theoretically treat the susy approximation at the level of mean field + gaussian corrections and test its accuracy against the widely used slave boson and slave fermion approximations. We find that in addition to slave boson and slave fermion solutions, a new class of solutions exists in the physical case Q = 1, N = 2 which can be properly treated by neither previously existing approach. The phase diagram generated by the mean field saddle-point bears a superficial resemblance to the V-shaped phase diagram common to systems close to a quantum critical point and may provide a natural starting point for investigations of strongly correlated models capturing this physics.
By considering the lack of history dependence in the non-equilibrium steady state of a quantum system we are led to conjecture that in such a system, there is a set of quantum mechanical observables whose retarded response functions are insensitive to the arrow of time, and which consequently satisfy a quantum analog of the Onsager reciprocity relations. Systems which satisfy this conjecture can be described by an effective Free energy functional. We demonstrate that the conjecture holds in a resonant level model of a multi-lead quantum dot.
This set of four lectures was originally given at the VI Training Course in the Physics of Correlated Electron systems and High-Tc Superconductors, at Vietri Sur Mare, Italy (Oct 2001). The lectures are at an introductory level with exercises. The course describes the physics of moment formation, the Kondo effect and the development of a coherent heavy electron fluid in the dense Kondo lattice. The last lecture discusses the open problem of quantum criticality in heavy electron systems.
When matter is cooled from high temperatures, collective instabilities develop amongst its constituent particles that lead to new kinds of order. An anomaly in the specific heat is a classic signature of this phenomenon. Usually the associated order is easily identified, but sometimes its nature remains elusive. The heavy fermion metal $URu_2Si_2$ is one such example, where the order responsible for the sharp specific heat anomaly at $T_0=17 K$ has remained unidentified despite more than seventeen years of effort. In $URu_{2}Si_{2}$, the coexistence of large electron-electron repulsion and antiferromagnetic fluctuations in $URu_2Si_2$ leads to an almost incompressible heavy electron fluid, where anisotropically paired quasiparticle states are energetically favored. In this paper we use these insights to develop a detailed proposal for the hidden order in $URu_2Si_2$. We show that incommensurate orbital antiferromagnetism, associated with circulating currents between the uranium ions, can account for the local fields and entropy loss observed at the $17 K$ transition; furthermore we make detailed predictions for neutron scattering measurements.
Using a quantum generalization of the Onsager principle of microscopic reversibility, the magnetization of a system in a non-equilibrium steady state quantum dot is formulated as a response of the interaction energy to an external field. This formulation permits a direct and compact computation of the steady-state magnetization of a non-equilibrium quantum dot as a differential of the interaction energy. Unlike the direct computation of the magnetization using perturbative Keldysh methods, this approach does not require the use of a point splitting procedure. Our results nevertheless support earlier calculations made in the limit of zero field, and they support the survival of strong coupling to arbitrarily large voltages, both at zero field, and under the conditions where the chemical potential difference $eV$ becomes equal to the spin-flip energy in a field $eV = g μ_{B}B$.
LiV2O4, a frustrated mixed valent metal (d^1 <-> d^2), is argued to undergo two spin-screening processes. The first quenches the effective spin to produce the spin 1/2 behavior seen below room temperature[1], while the second produces the heavy fermi liquid character seen at low temperatures[2]. We present here a preliminary discussion of a t-J model with strong Hund's coupling of the strongly correlated d-electrons. Valence fluctuations of the Hubbard operators (S = {1/2} <-> 1) combined with the frustration of the underlying corner-shared tetrahedral vanadium lattice are the essential components of our model.
We present a preliminary discussion on the use of supersymmetric representation of the Hubbard operator which unifies the slave boson and slave fermion representations into a single $U (1)\times SU (1| 1)$ gauge theory to treat the physics of the infinite U Hubbard model. By looking for solutions to the Hamiltonian in which the spins can exist as both condensed ordered moments and as mobile charged carriers, we examine the possibility of a Nagaoka ferromagnetic phase at finite doping with a quantum critical point into the paramagnetic phase.
A growing body of evidence suggests that the quantum critical behavior at the onset of magnetism in heavy fermion systems can not be understood in terms of a simple quantum spin density wave. This talk will discuss the consequences of this conclusion, touching on its possible implications in the realm of two dimensional systems and outlining current theoretical and experimental efforts to characterize the nature of the critical point in heavy fermion materials.
We discuss the discovery of pressure-induced antiferromagnetism in URu_2Si_2, in the context of neutron, NMR and μSR results. The identification of a critical pressure separating mean-field and Ising phase transitions leads us to propose that the system lies close to a bicritical point associated with magnetic and (non-magnetic) hidden order. We conclude that the recent observation of an isotropic, field-independent component in the silicon NMR line-width implies that the hidden order parameter breaks time-reversal invariance and present a preliminary discussion of the underlying nature of the hidden order parameter.
We consider a `quantum dot' in the Coulomb blockade regime, subject to an arbitrarily large source-drain voltage V. When V is small, quantum dots with odd electron occupation display the Kondo effect, giving rise to enhanced conductance. Here we investigate the regime where V is increased beyond the Kondo temperature and the Kondo resonance splits into two components. It is shown that interference between them results in spontaneous oscillations of the current through the dot. The theory predicts the appearance of ``Shapiro steps'' in the current-voltage characteristics of an irradiated quantum dot; these would constitute an experimental signature of the predicted effect.
We discuss non-Fermi liquid and quantum critical behavior in heavy fermion materials, focussing on the mechanism by which the electron mass appears to diverge at the quantum critical point. We ask whether the basic mechanism for the transformation involves electron diffraction off a quantum critical spin density wave, or whether a break-down in the composite nature of the heavy electron takes place at the quantum critical point. We show that the Hall constant changes continously in the first scenario, but may ``jump'' discontinuously at a quantum critical point where the composite character of the electron quasiparticles changes.
We examine the two-lead Kondo model for a d.c. biased quantum dot in the Coulomb blockade regime. From perturbative calculations of the magnetic susceptibility, we show that the problem retains its strong-coupling nature, even at bias voltages larger than the equilibrium Kondo temperature. We give a speculative discussion of the nature of the renormalization group flows and the strong-coupling state that emerges at large voltage bias.
Using the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method we study a two-channel Kondo lattice model on a half filled ladder. Our model involves an on-site s-wave and a nearest neighbor d-wave coupling between the local moments and the conduction electrons on the ladder. By changing the relative strength of the two Kondo interactions we examine the evolution of the system from a conventional Kondo insulator with a singlet at each site to a new kind of semimetallic state formed by overlapping of Zhang-Rice-like singlets. The DMRG is used to study how the spin and charge correlation functions evolve between these two regimes.
We develop a supersymmetric representation of the Hubbard operator which unifies the slave boson and slave fermion representations into a single $U (1)\times SU (1| 1)$ gauge theory, a group with larger symmetry than the product of two $U (1)$ gauge groups. These representations of the Hubbard operator can be used to incorporate strong Hund's interactions in multi-electron atoms as a constraint. We show how this method can be combined with the $SP (N)$ group to yield a locally supersymmetric large-N formulation of the $t-J$ model.