We study triangular clusters of three spin-1/2 Kondo or Anderson impurities that are coupled to two conduction leads. In the case of Kondo impurities, the model takes the form of an antiferromagnetic Heisenberg ring with Kondo-type exchange coupling to continuum electrons. We show that this model exhibits many types of the behavior found in various simpler one- and two-impurity models, thereby enabling the study of crossovers between a number of Fermi-liquid (FL) and non-Fermi-liquid (NFL) fixed points. In particular, we explore a direct crossover between the two-impurity Kondo-model NFL fixed point and the two-channel Kondo-model NFL fixed point. We show that the concept of the two-stage Kondo effect applies even in the case when the first-stage Kondo state is of NFL type. In the case of Anderson impurities, we consider the transport properties of three coupled quantum dots. This class of models includes, as limiting cases, the familiar serial double quantum dot and triple quantum dot nanostructures. By extracting the quasiparticle scattering phase shifts, we compute the low-temperature conductance as a function of the interimpurity tunneling coupling. We point out that due to the existence of exponentially low-temperature scales, there is a parameter range where the stable ``zero-temperature'' fixed point is essentially never reached (not even in numerical renormalization group calculations). The zero-temperature conductance is then of no interest and it may only be meaningful to compute the conductance at finite temperature. This illustrates the perils of studying the conductance in the ground state and considering thermal fluctuations only as a small correction.
The concepts of deconfinement and topological order are of great current interest for quantum information science and for our understanding of quantum materials. Here, we introduce a simple model of three antiferromagnetically coupled Kondo impurities, a ``Kondo triangle'', which can be used to further extend the application of these concepts to electronic systems. We show that by tuning the magnetic frustration, the Kondo triangle undergoes a quantum phase transition between two phases of unbroken symmetry, signaling a phase transition beyond the Landau paradigm. We demonstrate that the frustrated ``spin liquid'' phase is described by a three-channel Kondo fixed point and thus displays an irrational ground state degeneracy. Using an Abrikosov pseudofermion representation this quantum state is categorized by an emergent U(1) gauge field and its projective symmetry group. The gauge theory is deconfining in the sense that a miniature Wilson loop orders and that topological defects (instantons in the gauge field) are expelled. This phase persists in presence of moderate Kondo screening until the proliferation of topological defects leads to a quantum phase transition to an unfrustrated Fermi liquid phase. Based on this evidence, we propose that the three-channel Kondo phase displays topological order in a similar sense as gapless spin liquids.
The two-channel Kondo (2CK) effect with its exotic ground state properties has remained difficult to realize in physical systems. At low energies, a quantum impurity with orbital degree of freedom, like a proton bound in an interstitial lattice space, comprises a 3-level system with a unique ground state and (at least) doubly degenerate rotational excitations with excitation energy
Delta0. When immersed in a metal, electronic angular momentum scattering induces transitions between any two of these levels (couplings
J), while the electron spin is conserved. We show by extensive numerical renormalization group (NRG) calculations that without fine-tuning of parameters this system exhibits a 2CK fixed point, due to Kondo correlations in the excited-state doublet whose degeneracy is stabilized by the host lattice parity, while the channel symmetry (electron spin) is guaranteed by time reversal symmetry. We find a pronounced plateau in the entropy at
S(TK<T<Delta0)=kBln2 between the high-
T value,
S(TggDelta0)=kBln3, and the 2CK ground state value,
S(0)=kBlnsqrt2. This indicates a downward renormalization of the doublet below the non-interacting ground state, thus realizing the 2CK fixed point, in agreement with earlier conjectures. We mapped out the phase diagram of the model in the
J−Delta0 plane. The Kondo temperature
TK shows non-monotonic
J-dependence, characteristic for 2CK systems.newline indent Beside the two-channel Kondo effect of the model, we also study the single-channel version, which is realized by applying a strong magnetic field to the conduction band electrons so that their degeneracy is lifted and consequently having only one kind of electrons scattering off the impurity. This single-channel case is easier to analyze since the Hilbert space is not as large as that of the 2CK. We equally find a downward renormalization of the excited state energy by the Kondo correlations in the SU(2) doublet. In a wide range of parameter values this stabilizes the single-channel Kondo fixed point and a phase diagram is also mapped out for the model. In the single-channel version a plateau is found in the entropy at
S(TK<T<Delta0)=kBln2 between high-
T value,
S(TggDelta0)=kBln3, and the single-channel Kondo ground state value,
S(0)=kBln1.
We solve the two-impurity, two-channel Kondo model using a combination of conformal invariance and bosonization techniques. In the odd-even symmetric case, the RKKY interaction is exactly marginal, resulting in a line of non-Fermi-liquid fixed points. Explicit formulas are given for the critical exponents and for the finite-size spectrum, which depend continuously on a single parameter. The marginal line spans a range of values of the RKKY coupling
I which goes from the infinitely strong ferromagnetic point $I\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}+\ensuremath{\infty}$ to a finite antiferromagnetic critical value
Imin<0 beyond which a Fermi liquid is recovered. When the odd-even symmetry is broken, the marginal line is unstable for ferromagnetic
I, while for antiferromagnetic
I it extends into a manifold of fixed points.
Particle-hole symmetry breaking perturbation in the two-channel pseudospin Kondo problem is studied by the numerical renormalization-group method. It is shown that the repulsion among conduction electrons at the impurity site and the single particle potential are relevant perturbations against the conventional non-Fermi-liquid fixed point. Although the repulsion (potential) with realistic strength prevents the overscreening of the pseudospin, it induces in turn a real spin, which is also overscreened again. Thus the real spin susceptibility becomes anomalous, contrary to the conventional two-channel Kondo problem.