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arXiv:0906.2933 · Physical Review B

Kondo screening cloud in the single-impurity Anderson model: A density matrix renormalization group study

Andreas Holzner, Ian P. McCulloch, Ulrich Schollwöck, Jan von Delft, Fabian Heidrich‐Meisner

Published Nov 13, 2009• 77 citations
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Abstract

A magnetic moment in a metal or in a quantum dot is, at low temperatures, screened by the conduction electrons through the mechanism of the Kondo effect. This gives rise to spin-spin correlations between the magnetic moment and the conduction electrons, which can have a substantial spatial extension. We study this phenomenon, the so-called Kondo cloud, by means of the density matrix renormalization group method for the case of the single-impurity Anderson model. We focus on the question whether the Kondo screening length, typically assumed to be proportional to the inverse Kondo temperature, can be extracted from the spin-spin correlations. For several mechanisms---the gate potential and a magnetic field---which destroy the Kondo effect, we investigate the behavior of the screening cloud induced by these perturbations.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.80.205114

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A magnetic moment in a metal or in a quantum dot is, at low temperatures, screened by the conduction electrons through the mechanism of the Kondo effect. This gives rise to spin-spin correlations between the magnetic moment and the conduction electrons, which can have a substantial spatial extension. We study this phenomenon, the so-called Kondo cloud, by means of the density matrix renormalization group method for the case of the single-impurity Anderson model. We focus on the question whether the Kondo screening length, typically assumed to be proportional to the inverse Kondo temperature, can be extracted from the spin-spin correlations. For several mechanisms---the gate potential and a magnetic field---which destroy the Kondo effect, we investigate the behavior of the screening cloud induced by these perturbations.
A magnetic moment in a metal or in a quantum dot is, at low temperatures, screened by the conduction electrons through the mechanism of the Kondo effect. This gives rise to spin-spin correlations between the magnetic moment and the conduction electrons, which can have a substantial spatial extension. We study this phenomenon, the so-called Kondo cloud, by means of the density matrix renormalization group method for the case of the single-impurity Anderson model. We focus on the question whether the Kondo screening length, typically assumed to be proportional to the inverse Kondo temperature, can be extracted from the spin-spin correlations. For several mechanisms -- the gate potential and a magnetic field -- that destroy the Kondo effect, we investigate the behavior of the screening cloud induced by these perturbations.
The existence of a length scale ${\ensuremath{\xi}}_{K}\ensuremath{\sim}1/{T}_{K}$ (with TK{T}_{K}TK​ the Kondo temperature) has long been predicted in quantum impurity systems. At low temperatures $T\ensuremath{\ll}{T}_{K}$, the standard interpretation is that a spin-12\frac{1}{2}21​ impurity is screened by a surrounding ``Kondo cloud'' of spatial extent ${\ensuremath{\xi}}_{K}$. We argue that renormalization group (RG) flow between any two fixed points (FPs) results in a characteristic length scale, observed in real space as a crossover between physical behavior typical of each FP. In the simplest example of the Anderson impurity model, three FPs arise, and we show that ``free orbital,'' ``local moment,'' and ``strong coupling'' regions of space can be identified at zero temperature. These regions are separated by two crossover length scales ${\ensuremath{\xi}}_{\text{LM}}$ and ${\ensuremath{\xi}}_{K}$, with the latter diverging as the Kondo effect is destroyed on increasing temperature through TK{T}_{K}TK​. One implication is that moment formation occurs inside the ``Kondo cloud'', while the screening process itself occurs on flowing to the strong coupling FP at distances $\ensuremath{\sim}{\ensuremath{\xi}}_{K}$. Generic aspects of the real-space physics are exemplified by the two-channel Kondo model, where ${\ensuremath{\xi}}_{K}$ now separates local moment and overscreening clouds.
We study the Kondo model---a magnetic impurity coupled to a one-dimensional wire via exchange coupling---by using Wilson's numerical renormalization group technique. By applying an approach similar to which was used to compute the two-impurity problem we managed to improve the poor spatial resolution of the numerical renormalization group method. In this way we have calculated the impurity-spin--conduction-electron-spin correlation function which is a measure of the Kondo compensation cloud whose existence has been a long-standing problem in solid-state physics. We also present results on the temperature dependence of the Kondo correlations.
We analyze the Kondo effect of a magnetic impurity attached to an ultrasmall metallic wire using the density matrix renormalization group. The spatial spin correlation function and the impurity spectral density are computed for system sizes of up to L=511 sites, covering the crossover from L<l{K} to L>l{K}, with l{K} the spin screening length. We establish a proportionality between the weight of the Kondo resonance and l{K} as a function of L. This suggests a spectroscopic way of detecting the Kondo cloud.
The system of several (N)(N)(N) quantum dots coupled in parallel to the same single-mode conduction channel can be modeled as a single-channel NNN-impurity Anderson model. Using the generalized Schrieffer-Wolff transformation we show that near the particle-hole symmetric point, the effective Hamiltonian in the local moment regime is the NNN-impurity S=1∕2S=1∕2S=1∕2 Kondo model. The conduction-band-mediated RKKY exchange interaction between the dots is ferromagnetic and at intermediate temperatures locks the moments into a maximal spin S=N∕2S=N∕2S=N∕2 ground state. We provide an analytical estimate for the RKKY interaction. At low temperatures the spin is partially screened by the conduction electrons to $N∕2\ensuremath{-}1∕2$ due to the Kondo effect. By comparing accurate numerical renormalization group results for magnetic susceptibility of the NNN-impurity Anderson model to the exact Bethe ansatz results of a S=N∕2S=N∕2S=N∕2 SU(2) Kondo system we show that at low-temperature the quantum dots can be described by the effective S=N∕2S=N∕2S=N∕2 Kondo model. Moreover, the Kondo temperature is independent of the number of impurities NNN. We demonstrate the robustness of the spin N∕2N∕2N∕2 ground state as well as of the associated S=N∕2S=N∕2S=N∕2 Kondo effect by studying the stability of the system with respect to various experimentally relevant perturbations. We finally explore various quantum phase transitions driven by these perturbations.
We analyze the single-channel Kondo model using the recently developed unitary renormalization-group (URG) method and obtain a comprehensive understanding of the Kondo screening cloud. The fixed-point low-energy Hamiltonian enables the computation of a plethora of thermodynamic quantities (specific heat, susceptibility, Wilson ratio, etc.) as well as spectral functions, all of which are found to be in good agreement with known results. By integrating out the impurity, we obtain an effective Hamiltonian for the excitations of the electrons comprising the Kondo cloud. This is found to contain both kkk-space number diagonal (Fermi liquid) and off-diagonal four-fermion scattering terms. Our conclusions are reinforced by a URG study of the two-particle entanglement and many-body correlations among members of the Kondo cloud and impurity. The entanglement between the impurity and a cloud electron, as well as between any two cloud electrons, is found to increase under flow towards the singlet ground state at the strong-coupling fixed point. Both the number diagonal and off-diagonal correlations within the conduction cloud are also found to increase as the impurity is screened under the flow, and the latter are found to be responsible for the macroscopic entanglement of the Kondo-singlet ground state. The URG flow enables an analytic computation of the phase shifts suffered by the conduction electrons at the strong-coupling fixed point. This reveals an orthogonality catastrophe between the local-moment and strong-coupling ground states and is related to a change in the Luttinger volume of the conduction bath under the crossover to strong coupling. Our results offer fresh insight into the nature of the emergent many-particle entanglement within the Kondo cloud and pave the way for further investigations in more exotic contexts such as the fixed point of the overscreened multichannel Kondo problem.