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arXiv:1409.0646 · Physical Review B

Nonequilibrium spatiotemporal formation of the Kondo screening cloud on a lattice

Martin Nuss, Martin Ganahl, Enrico Arrigoni, Wolfgang von der Linden, Hans Gerd Evertz

Published Feb 27, 2015• 44 citations
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Abstract

We study the nonequilibrium formation of a spin screening cloud that accompanies the quenching of a local magnetic moment immersed in a Fermi sea at zero temperature. Based on high-precision density matrix renormalization-group results for the interacting single-impurity Anderson model, we discuss the real-time evolution after a quantum quench in the impurity-reservoir hybridization using time-evolving block decimation. We report emergent length and time scales in the spatiotemporal structure of nonlocal correlation functions in the spin and the charge density channel. At equilibrium, our data for the correlation functions and the extracted length scales show good agreement with existing results, as do local time-dependent observables at the impurity. In the time-dependent data, we identify a major signal which defines a ``light cone'' moving at the Fermi velocity and a ferromagnetic component in its wake. Inside the light cone we find that the structure of the nonequilibrium correlation functions emerges on two time scales. Initially, the qualitative structure of the correlation functions develops rapidly at the lattice Fermi velocity. Subsequently the spin correlations converge to the equilibrium results on a much larger time scale. This process sets a dynamic energy scale, which we identify to be proportional to the Kondo temperature. Outside the light cone we observe two different power-law decays of the correlation functions in space, with time- and interaction-strength-independent exponents.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.91.085127

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We study the nonequilibrium formation of a spin screening cloud that accompanies the quenching of a local magnetic moment immersed in a Fermi sea at zero temperature. Based on high-precision density matrix renormalization-group results for the interacting single-impurity Anderson model, we discuss the real-time evolution after a quantum quench in the impurity-reservoir hybridization using time-evolving block decimation. We report emergent length and time scales in the spatiotemporal structure of nonlocal correlation functions in the spin and the charge density channel. At equilibrium, our data for the correlation functions and the extracted length scales show good agreement with existing results, as do local time-dependent observables at the impurity. In the time-dependent data, we identify a major signal which defines a ``light cone'' moving at the Fermi velocity and a ferromagnetic component in its wake. Inside the light cone we find that the structure of the nonequilibrium correlation functions emerges on two time scales. Initially, the qualitative structure of the correlation functions develops rapidly at the lattice Fermi velocity. Subsequently the spin correlations converge to the equilibrium results on a much larger time scale. This process sets a dynamic energy scale, which we identify to be proportional to the Kondo temperature. Outside the light cone we observe two different power-law decays of the correlation functions in space, with time- and interaction-strength-independent exponents.
We investigate how the Kondo screening cloud builds up as a function of space and time. Starting from an impurity spin decoupled from the conduction band, the Kondo coupling is switched on at time t=0t=0t=0. We work at the Toulouse point where one can obtain exact analytical results for the ensuing spin dynamics at both zero and nonzero temperature TTT. For t>0t>0t>0 the Kondo screening cloud starts building up in the wake of the impurity spin being transported to infinity. In this buildup process the impurity spin--conduction band spin susceptibility shows a sharp light cone due to causality, while the corresponding correlation function has a tail outside the light cone. At T=0T=0T=0 this tail has a power-law decay as a function of distance from the impurity, which we interpret as due to initial entanglement in the Fermi sea.
We study a quantum quench in which a magnetic impurity is suddenly coupled to Hubbard chains, whose low-energy physics is described by Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid theory. Using the time-dependent density-matrix renormalization-group (tDMRG) technique, we analyze the propagation of charge, spin, and entanglement in the chains after the quench and relate the light-cone velocities to the dispersion of holons and spinons. We find that the local magnetization at the impurity site decays faster if we increase the interaction in the chains, even though the spin velocity decreases. We derive an analytical expression for the relaxation of the impurity magnetization which is in good agreement with the tDMRG results at intermediate timescales, providing valuable insight into the time evolution of the Kondo screening cloud in interacting systems.
We address the fundamental question how the spatial Kondo correlations are building up in time assuming an initially decoupled impurity spin ${\stackrel{P\vec}{S}}_{\mathrm{imp}}$. We investigate the time-dependent spin-correlation function $\ensuremath{\chi}(\stackrel{P\vec}{r},t)=\ensuremath{\langle}{\stackrel{P\vec}{S}}_{\mathrm{imp}}\stackrel{P\vec}{s}(\stackrel{P\vec}{r})\ensuremath{\rangle}(t)$ in the Kondo model with antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic couplings, where $\stackrel{P\vec}{s}(\stackrel{P\vec}{r})$ denotes the spin density of the conduction electrons after switching on the Kondo coupling at time t=0t=0t=0. We present data obtained from a time-dependent numerical renormalisation group (TD-NRG) calculation. We gauge the accuracy of our two-band NRG by the spatial sum rules of the equilibrium correlation functions and the reproduction of the analytically exactly known spin-correlation function of the decoupled Fermi sea. We find a remarkable building up of Kondo correlation outside of the light cone defined by the Fermi velocity of the host metal. By employing a perturbative approach exact in second-order of the Kondo coupling, we connect these surprising correlations to the intrinsic spin-density entanglement of the Fermi sea. The thermal wavelength supplies a cutoff scale at finite temperatures beyond which correlations are exponentially suppressed. We present data for the frequency dependent retarded spin-spin susceptibility and use the results to calculate the real-time response of a weak perturbation in linear response: within the spatial resolution no response outside of the light cone is found.
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.
The energy-dependent scattering of fermions from a localized orbital at an energy-dependent rate $\ensuremath{\Gamma}(\ensuremath{\varepsilon})\ensuremath{\propto}{|\ensuremath{\varepsilon}|}^{r}$ gives rise to quantum critical points (QCPs) in the pseudogap single-impurity Anderson model separating a local moment phase with an unscreened spin moment from a strong-coupling phase which slightly deviates from the screened phase of standard Kondo problem. Using the time-dependent numerical renormalization group (TD-NRG) approach we show that local dynamic properties always equilibrate towards a steady-state value even for quenches across the QCP but with systematic deviations from the thermal equilibrium depending on the distance to the critical coupling. Local nonequilibrium properties are presented for interaction quenches and hybridization quenches. We augment our numerical data by an analytical calculation that becomes exact at short times and find excellent agreement between the numerics and the analytical theory. For interaction quenches within the screened phase we find a universal function for the time-dependent local double occupancy. We trace back the discrepancy between our results and the data obtained by a time-dependent Gutzwiller variational approach to restrictions of the wave-function ansatz in the Gutzwiller theory: while the NRG ground states properly account for the formation of an extended spin moment which decouples from the system in the unscreened phase, the Gutzwiller ansatz only allows the formation of the spin moment on the local impurity orbital.
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.