The Kondo effect is a ubiquitous phenomenon appearing at low temperature in quantum confined systems coupled to a continuous bath. Efforts in understanding and controlling it have triggered important developments across several disciplines of condensed matter physics. A recurring pattern in these studies is that the suppression of the Kondo effect often results in intriguing physical phenomena such as impurity quantum phase transitions or non-Fermi-liquid behavior. We show that the fidelity susceptibility is a sensitive indicator for such phenomena because it quantifies the sensitivity of the system's state with respect to its coupling to the bath. We demonstrate the power of the fidelity susceptibility approach by using it to identify the crossover and quantum phase transitions in the one and two impurity Anderson models. The feasibility of measuring fidelity susceptibility in condensed matter as well as ultracold quantum gases experiments opens exciting new routes to diagnose the Kondo problem and impurity quantum phase transitions.
The Kondo effect is a ubiquitous phenomenon appearing at low temperature in quantum confined systems coupled to a continuous bath. Efforts in understanding and controlling it have triggered important developments across several disciplines of condensed matter physics. A recurring pattern in these studies is that the suppression of the Kondo effect often results in intriguing physical phenomena such as impurity quantum phase transitions or non-Fermi-liquid behavior. We show that the fidelity susceptibility is a sensitive indicator for such phenomena because it quantifies the sensitivity of the system's state with respect to its coupling to the bath. We demonstrate the power of the fidelity susceptibility approach by using it to identify the crossover and quantum phase transitions in the one and two impurity Anderson models. The feasibility of measuring fidelity susceptibility in condensed matter as well as ultracold quantum gases experiments opens exciting new routes to diagnose the Kondo problem and impurity quantum phase transitions.
We address the phenomenon of critical Kondo destruction in pseudogap Bose-Fermi Anderson and Kondo quantum impurity models. These models describe a localized level coupled both to a fermionic bath having a density of states that vanishes like ${|\ensuremath{\epsilon}|}^{r}$ at the Fermi energy ($\ensuremath{\epsilon}=0$) and, via one component of the impurity spin, to a bosonic bath having a sub-Ohmic spectral density proportional to ${|\ensuremath{\omega}|}^{s}$. Each bath is capable by itself of suppressing the Kondo effect at a continuous quantum phase transition. We study the interplay between these two mechanisms for Kondo destruction using continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo for the pseudogap Bose-Fermi Anderson model with 0<r<21 and $\frac{1}{2}\ensuremath{\le}s<1$, and applying the numerical renormalization group to the corresponding Kondo model. At particle-hole symmetry, the models exhibit a quantum-critical point between a Kondo (fermionic strong-coupling) phase and a localized (Kondo-destroyed) phase. The two solution methods, which are in good agreement in their domain of overlap, provide access to the many-body spectrum, as well as to correlation functions including, in particular, the single-particle Green's function and the static and dynamical local spin susceptibilities. The quantum-critical regime exhibits the hyperscaling of critical exponents and $\ensuremath{\omega}/T$ scaling in the dynamics that characterize an interacting critical point. The (r,s) plane can be divided into three regions: one each in which the calculated critical properties are dominated by the bosonic bath alone or by the fermionic bath alone, and between these two regions, a third in which the bosonic bath governs the critical spin response but both baths influence the renormalization-group flow near the quantum-critical point.
A generalized version of the fidelity susceptibility of single-band and multiorbital Hubbard models is systematically studied using single-site dynamical mean-field theory in combination with a hybridization expansion continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo impurity solver. We find that the fidelity susceptibility is extremely sensitive to changes in the state of the system. It can be used as a numerically inexpensive tool to detect and characterize a broad range of phase transitions and crossovers in Hubbard models, including (orbital-selective) Mott metal-insulator transitions, magnetic phase transitions, high-spin to low-spin transitions, Fermi-liquid to non-Fermi-liquid crossovers, and spin-freezing crossovers.
Quantum phase transitions out of equilibrium are outstanding emergent subjects in condensed matter physics with great fundamental importance and challenges. We theoretically investigate here the nonequilibrium quantum phase transition in a generic nano-setup: the pseudogap Kondo model where a Kondo quantum dot couples to two---left (L) and right (R)---voltage-biased fermionic leads with power-law density of states (DOS) with respect to their Fermi levels ${\ensuremath{\mu}}_{L/R}$, ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{c,L(R)}(\ensuremath{\omega})\ensuremath{\propto}{|\ensuremath{\omega}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\mu}}_{L(R)}|}^{r}$ with 0<r<1. In equilibrium (${\ensuremath{\mu}}_{L}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\mu}}_{R}=0$) and for 0<r<1/2, with increasing Kondo correlations this model exhibits a quantum phase transition from a unscreened local moment (LM) phase to the Kondo screened phase. At finite bias voltages and near criticality, we discover new nonequilibrium universal scaling behaviors in conductance, conduction electron T matrix, and local spin susceptibility via a controlled frequency-dependent renormalization group (RG) approach. The current-induced decoherence is key to understanding these distinct universal nonequilibrium quantum critical regimes. The relevance of our results to experiment is discussed.
We study the competition between Kondo physics and dissipation within an Anderson model of a magnetic impurity level that hybridizes with a metallic host and is also coupled, via the impurity charge, to the displacement of a bosonic bath having a spectral density proportional to ${\ensuremath{\omega}}^{s}$. As the impurity-bath coupling increases from zero, the effective Coulomb interaction between two electrons in the impurity level is progressively renormalized from its repulsive bare value until it eventually becomes attractive. For weak hybridization, this renormalization in turn produces a crossover from a conventional spin-sector Kondo effect to a charge Kondo effect. At particle-hole symmetry, and for sub-Ohmic bath exponents 0<s<1, further increase in the impurity-bath coupling results in a continuous zero-temperature transition to a broken-symmetry phase in which the ground-state impurity occupancy ${\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{n}}_{d}$ acquires an expectation value ${⟨{\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{n}}_{d}⟩}_{0}\ensuremath{\ne}1$. The response of the impurity occupancy to a locally applied electric potential features the hyperscaling of critical exponents and $\ensuremath{\omega}∕T$ scaling that are expected at an interacting critical point. The numerical values of the critical exponents suggest that the transition lies in the same universality class as that of the sub-Ohmic spin-boson model. For the Ohmic case s=1, the transition is instead of Kosterlitz-Thouless type. Away from particle-hole symmetry, the quantum phase transition is replaced by a smooth crossover but signatures of the symmetric quantum critical point remain in the physical properties at elevated temperatures and/or frequencies.
Recent work is reviewed on continuous quantum phase transitions in impurity models, both with fermionic and bosonic baths – these transitions are interesting realizations of boundary critical phenomena at zero temperature. The models with fermion bath are generalizations of the standard Kondo model, with the common feature that Kondo screening of the localized spin can be suppressed due to competing processes. The models with boson bath are related to the spin–boson model of dissipative two-level systems, where the interplay between tunneling and friction results in multiple phases. The competition inherent to all models can generate unstable fixed points associated with quantum phase transitions, where the impurity properties undergo qualitative changes. Interestingly, certain impurity transitions feature both lower-critical and upper-critical “dimensions” and allow for epsilon-type expansions. Results are presented for a number of observables, obtained by both analytical and numerical renormalization group techniques, and connections made to experiments.
We discuss the two-channel Kondo problem with a pseudogap density of states $\ensuremath{\rho}(\ensuremath{\omega})\ensuremath{\propto}{|\ensuremath{\omega}|}^{r}$ 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 $0<r<{r}_{\mathrm{max}}\ensuremath{\approx}0.23$. For r>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 $\ensuremath{\epsilon}$ expansion techniques to calculate critical properties near the critical dimensions r=0 and 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.