1. Electronic Origin of the Volume Collapse in Cerium
- Author
-
Devaux, N., Casula, M., Decremps, F., and Sorella, S.
- Subjects
Condensed Matter - Strongly Correlated Electrons ,Condensed Matter - Materials Science - Abstract
The cerium alpha-gamma phase transition is characterized by means of a many-body Jastrow-correlated wave function, which minimizes the variational energy of the first-principles scalar-relativistic Hamiltonian, and includes correlation effects in a non-perturbative way. Our variational ansatz accurately reproduces the structural properties of the two phases, and proves that even at temperature $T=0$K the system undergoes a first order transition, with ab initio parameters which are seamlessly connected to the ones measured by experiment at finite $T$. We show that the transition is related to a complex rearrangement of the electronic structure, with key role played by the p-f hybridization. The underlying mechanism unveiled by this work can hold in many Ce-bearing compounds, and more generally in other f-electron systems., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures
- Published
- 2015
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