Some well-established examples of itinerant-electron ferromagnetism in one dimension occur in a Mott-insulating phase. We examine the consequences of doping a ferromagnetic insulator and coupling magnons to gapless charge fluctuations. Using a bosonization scheme for strongly interacting electrons, we derive an effective field theory for the magnon-holon interaction. When the magnon momentum matches the Fermi momentum of the holons, the backscattering of the magnon at low energies gives rise to a Kondo effect of a pseudospin defined from the chirality degree of freedom (right- or left-moving particles). The crossover between weak-coupling and strong-coupling fixed points of the effective mobile-impurity model is then investigated using a numerical renormalization group approach.
Some well-established examples of itinerant-electron ferromagnetism in one dimension occur in a Mott-insulating phase. We examine the consequences of doping a ferromagnetic insulator and coupling magnons to gapless charge fluctuations. Using a bosonization scheme for strongly interacting electrons, we derive an effective field theory for the magnon-holon interaction. When the magnon momentum matches the Fermi momentum of the holons, the backscattering of the magnon at low energies gives rise to a Kondo effect of a pseudospin defined from the chirality degree of freedom (right- or left-moving particles). The crossover between weak-coupling and strong-coupling fixed points of the effective mobile-impurity model is then investigated using a numerical renormalization group approach.
Topological Kondo insulators are strongly correlated materials where itinerant electrons hybridize with localized spins, giving rise to a topologically nontrivial band structure. Here, we use nonperturbative bosonization and renormalization-group techniques to study theoretically a one-dimensional topological Kondo insulator, described as a Kondo-Heisenberg model, where the Heisenberg spin-1/2 chain is coupled to a Hubbard chain through a Kondo exchange interaction in the p-wave channel (i.e., a strongly correlated version of the prototypical Tamm-Schockley model). We derive and solve renormalization-group equations at two-loop order in the Kondo parameter, and find that, at half filling, the charge degrees of freedom in the Hubbard chain acquire a Mott gap, even in the case of a noninteracting conduction band (Hubbard parameter U=0). Furthermore, at low enough temperatures, the system maps onto a spin-1/2 ladder with local ferromagnetic interactions along the rungs, effectively locking the spin degrees of freedom into a spin-1 chain with frozen charge degrees of freedom. This structure behaves as a spin-1 Haldane chain, a prototypical interacting topological spin model, and features two magnetic spin-1/2 end states for chains with open boundary conditions. Our analysis allows us to derive an insightful connection between topological Kondo insulators in one spatial dimension and the well-known physics of the Haldane chain, showing that the ground state of the former is qualitatively different from the predictions of the naive mean-field theory.
Heavy-fermion or Kondo lattice materials are considered to be typical strongly correlated systems, for which mean-field approximations have shown that the Coulomb interaction increases the effective mass and narrows the band gap. In this paper, to clarify interaction effects on the electronic excitation, the spectral function of the Kondo lattice and periodic Anderson models is studied around Kondo insulators in the strong-coupling regime, by using the non-Abelian dynamical density-matrix renormalization group method and perturbation theory. Upon doping a Kondo insulator, an electronic mode emerges in the Kondo insulating gap, exhibiting the momentum-shifted magnetic dispersion relation. Although the ground-state properties are similar to those of a doped band insulator, the emergence of the electronic mode reflecting spin-charge separation of the Kondo insulator is a crucial interaction effect that allows us to regard the Kondo-insulator--metal transition as a type of Mott transition. In addition, electronic modes emerge even in the high-energy regime by doping in the periodic Anderson model. These strong-correlation effects have not been expected in conventional mean-field approximations and would bring a different perspective on heavy-fermion or Kondo lattice systems.
We investigate the magnetic order and related strongly correlated effects in a one-dimensional Ising-Kondo lattice with transverse field. This model is the anisotropic limit of the conventional isotropic Kondo lattice model, in the sense that the itinerant electrons interact with the localized magnetic moments via only longitudinal Kondo exchange. Adopting the numerical density-matrix renormalization group method, we map out the ground-state phase diagram in various parameter spaces. Depending on the Kondo coupling and filling number, three distinct phases, including a metallic paramagnetic, a metallic ferromagnetic, and a gapped spin-density wave phase, are obtained. The spin-density wave is characterized by an ordering wave vector, which coincides with the nesting wave vector of the Fermi surface. This makes the corresponding magnetic transition a spin analog of the Peierls transition occurring in the one-dimensional metal. Moreover, by analyzing the momentum distribution function and charge correlation function, the conduction electrons are shown to behave like free spinless fermions in the ferromagnetic phase. We finally discuss the effect of the repulsive Hubbard interaction between conduction electrons. Our paper enriches the Kondo physics and deepens the current understanding of the heavy fermion compounds.
Using a one-dimensional spin-orbital model as a typical example of quantum spin systems with richer symmetries, we study the effect of an isolated impurity on its low-energy dynamics in the gapless phase through bosonization and renormalization-group methods. In the case of internal impurities, depending on the symmetry, the boundary fixed points can be either an open chain with a residual spin or (and) orbital triplet left behind, or a periodic chain. However, these two fixed points are indistinguishable in the sense that in both cases, the lead-correction-to-scaling boundary operators (LCBO) only show Fermi-liquid-like corrections to thermodynamical quantities (except the possible Curie-like contributions from the residual moments in the former cases). In the case of external (Kondo) impurities, the boundary fixed points, depending on the sign of orbital couplings, can be either an open chain with an isolated orbital doublet due to Kondo screening or an intermediate fixed point with the same LCBO as that of the two-channel Kondo problem. Comparison with the Kondo effect in one-dimensional Heisenberg spin chain and multiband Hubbard models is also made.
We consider the transport properties in an applied magnetic field of the spin S=1/2 Kondo model with ferromagnetic exchange coupling to electronic reservoirs, a description relevant for the strong-coupling limit of underscreened spin S=1 Kondo impurities. Because the ferromagnetic Kondo interaction is marginally irrelevant, perturbative methods should prove accurate down to low energies. For the purpose of this study, we use a combination of Majorana diagrammatic theory with density matrix numerical renormalization group simulations. In the standard case of antiferromagnetic Kondo exchange, we first show that our simple analytical technique recovers results for the T-matrix and spin relaxation at weak coupling (above the Kondo temperature), which were previously obtained using functional renormalization tools. Considering then the ferromagnetic case, we demonstrate how the low-energy Kondo anomaly splits for arbitrary small values of the Zeeman energy, in contrast to fully screened Kondo impurities near the strong-coupling Fermi liquid fixed point, and in agreement with recent experimental findings for spin S=1 molecular quantum dots.
We introduce a slave-fermion formulation in which to study the charge dynamics of the half-filled Hubbard model on the square lattice. In this description, the charge degrees of freedom are represented by fermionic holons and doublons and the Mott-insulating characteristics of the ground state are the consequence of holon–doublon bound-state formation. The bosonic spin degrees of freedom are described by the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model, yielding long-ranged (Néel) magnetic order at zero temperature. Within this framework and in the self-consistent Born approximation, we perform systematic calculations of the average double occupancy, the electronic density of states, the spectral function and the optical conductivity. Qualitatively, our method reproduces the lower and upper Hubbard bands, the spectral-weight transfer into a coherent quasiparticle band at their lower edges and the renormalisation of the Mott gap, which is associated with holon–doublon binding, due to the interactions of both quasiparticle species with the magnons. The zeros of the Green function at the chemical potential give the Luttinger volume, the poles of the self-energy reflect the underlying quasiparticle dispersion with a spin-renormalised hopping parameter and the optical gap is directly related to the Mott gap. Quantitatively, the square-lattice Hubbard model is one of the best-characterised problems in correlated condensed matter and many numerical calculations, all with different strengths and weaknesses, exist with which to benchmark our approach. From the semi-quantitative accuracy of our results for all but the weakest interaction strengths, we conclude that a self-consistent treatment of the spin-fluctuation effects on the charge degrees of freedom captures all the essential physics of the antiferromagnetic Mott–Hubbard insulator. We remark in addition that an analytical approximation with these properties serves a vital function in developing a full understanding of the fundamental physics of the Mott state, both in the antiferromagnetic insulator and at finite temperatures and dopings.