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arXiv:cond-mat/0310179 · Physical Review B

Exact scaling functions of the multichannel Kondo model

Serge Florens

Published Mar 16, 2004• 4 citations
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Abstract

We reinvestigate the large degeneracy solution of the multichannel Kondo problem, and show how in the universal regime the complicated integral equations simplifying the problem can be mapped onto a first-order differential equation. This leads to an explicit expression for the full zero-temperature scaling functions at---and away from---the intermediate non-Fermi-liquid fixed point, providing complete analytic information on the universal low---and intermediate---energy properties of the model. These results also apply to the widely used noncrossing approximation of the Anderson model, taken in the Kondo regime. An extension of this formalism for studying finite-temperature effects is also proposed and offers a simple approach to solve models of strongly correlated electrons with relevance to the physics of heavy fermion compounds.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.69.113103

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We reinvestigate the large degeneracy solution of the multichannel Kondo problem, and show how in the universal regime the complicated integral equations simplifying the problem can be mapped onto a first-order differential equation. This leads to an explicit expression for the full zero-temperature scaling functions at---and away from---the intermediate non-Fermi-liquid fixed point, providing complete analytic information on the universal low---and intermediate---energy properties of the model. These results also apply to the widely used noncrossing approximation of the Anderson model, taken in the Kondo regime. An extension of this formalism for studying finite-temperature effects is also proposed and offers a simple approach to solve models of strongly correlated electrons with relevance to the physics of heavy fermion compounds.
We discuss a multichannel SU(N) Kondo model which displays nontrivial zero-temperature phase transitions due to a conduction electron density of states vanishing with a power law at the Fermi level. In a particular large- N limit, the system is described by coupled integral equations corresponding to a dynamic saddle point. We exactly determine the universal low-energy behavior of spectral densities at the scale-invariant fixed points, obtain anomalous exponents, and compute scaling functions describing the crossover near the quantum-critical points. We argue that our findings are relevant to recent experiments on impurity-doped d-wave superconductors.
The $\ensuremath{\beta}$ function of the multichannel Kondo model is calculated exactly in the limit of large spin N and channel number $M=\ensuremath{\gamma}N$, with constant $\ensuremath{\gamma}$. There are no corrections in any finite order of 1/N1/N1/N. One zero is found at a finite coupling strength, showing directly the non-Fermi-liquid behavior of the model. This renormalization group flow allows introduction of a variational principle for the entropy, to obtain the low-temperature thermodynamics. Thus, in particular, the low-temperature thermodynamics of the noncrossing approximation to the Kondo model becomes accessible.
A path integral formulation of the SU(N) Kondo model is explored as a possible theoretical tool for studying generalizations of the model, such as the Kondo lattice, which are difficult to study by other means. Saddle point approximations to the path integral lead to an expansion in powers of 1/N. After developing the basic path integral formalism, the method is applied to three related problems. The first of these is an exactly soluble toy model which, like the Kondo model, shows smooth crossover between weakly mixed configurations at high energy scales and strongly mixed singlet configurations at low energy scales. Simple approximations are found for describing the high and low temperature limits of the model, and the failure of these approximations in the crossover region is interpreted in terms of differences between the high and low energy scales. In chapter 4 the low temperature approximation is used to study the Kondo crossover as a function of magnetic field at zero temperature. Smooth and plausible crossover is found provided the magnetic field is introduced in a way which preserves degeneracy proportional toN, indicating that the failure to describe temperature crossover is not a general limitation of the method. Finally, the same zero temperature equations are generalized in chapter 5 to a model of a magnetic impurity interacting with a gapless electronic band. Using a simple renormalization group argument this model is shown to have a transition as a function of coupling constant at zero temperature. This result is confirmed and extended using the zero temperature path integral equations, and certain special features of the magnetic field crossover are noted.
The multichannel Kondo model with SU(N)\mathrm{SU}(N)SU(N) spin symmetry and SU(K)\mathrm{SU}(K)SU(K) channel symmetry is considered. The impurity spin is chosen to transform as an antisymmetric representation of SU(N),\mathrm{SU}(N),SU(N), corresponding to a fixed number of Abrikosov fermions ${\ensuremath{\sum}}_{\ensuremath{\alpha}}{f}_{\ensuremath{\alpha}}^{\ifmmode\dagger\else\textdagger\fi{}}{f}_{\ensuremath{\alpha}}=Q.$ For more than one channel (K>1),(K>1),(K>1), and all values of NNN and Q,Q,Q, the model displays non-Fermi behavior associated with the overscreening of the impurity spin. Universal low-temperature thermodynamic and transport properties of this non-Fermi-liquid state are computed using conformal field theory methods. A large-NNN limit of the model is then considered, in which $K/N\ensuremath{\equiv}\ensuremath{\gamma}$ and $Q/N\ensuremath{\equiv}{q}_{0}$ are held fixed. Spectral densities satisfy coupled integral equations in this limit, corresponding to a (time-dependent) saddle point. A low-frequency, low-temperature analysis of these equations reveals universal scaling properties in the variable $\ensuremath{\omega}/T,$ in agreement with conformal invariance. The universal scaling form is obtained analytically and used to compute the low-temperature universal properties of the model in the large-NNN limit, such as the T=0T=0T=0 residual entropy and residual resistivity, and the critical exponents associated with the specific heat and susceptibility. The connections with the ``noncrossing approximation'' and the previous work of Cox and Ruckenstein are discussed.
In this work we consider several exactly solvable models of magnetic impurities in critical quantum antiferromagnetic spin chains and multichannel Kondo impurities. Their ground-state properties are studied, and the finite set of nonlinear integral equations which exactly describe the thermodynamics of the models is constructed. We obtain several analytical low-energy expressions for the temperature, magnetic field, and frequency dependences of important characteristics of exactly solvable disordered quantum spin models and disordered multichannel Kondo impurities with essential many-body interactions. We show that the only low-energy parameter that gets renormalized is the velocity of the low-lying excitations (or the effective crossover scale connected with each impurity); the others appear to be universal. In our study several kinds of strong disorder important for experiments were used. Some of them produce low divergences in certain characteristics of our strongly disordered critical systems (compared with finite values for the homogeneous case or a single impurity). For weak disorder, or for narrow distributions of the local Kondo temperatures, our exact results reveal the presence of Kondo screening of disordered ensembles of magnetic impurities by low-lying excitations of the host. We point out that our results qualitatively coincide with the data of experiments on real disordered quasi-one-dimensional antiferromagnetic systems and with the similar behavior of some heavy metallic alloys.
A novel large- NNN limit of the multichannel Kondo model is introduced, for representations of the impurity spin described by Schwinger bosons. Three cases are found, associated with underscreening, overscreening, and exact Kondo screening of the impurity. The saddle-point equations derived in this limit are reminiscent of the ``noncrossing approximation,'' but preserve the Fermi-liquid nature of the model in the exactly screened case. Several physical quantities are computed, both numerically and analytically in the low- $\ensuremath{\omega},T$ limit, and compared to other approaches.