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Violation of Wiedemann-Franz law at the Kondo breakdown quantum critical point

Authors :
Kim, K. -S.
Pépin, C.
Source :
Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 156404 (2009)
Publication Year :
2008

Abstract

We study both the electrical and thermal transport near the heavy-fermion quantum critical point (QCP), identified with the breakdown of the Kondo effect as an orbital selective Mott transition. We show that the contribution to the electrical conductivity comes mainly from conduction electrons while the thermal conductivity is given by both conduction electrons and localized fermions (spinons), scattered with dynamical exponent $z = 3$. This scattering mechanism gives rise to a quasi-linear temperature dependence of the electrical and thermal resistivity. The characteristic feature of the Kondo breakdown scenario turns out to be emergence of additional entropy carriers, that is, spinon excitations. As a result, we find that the Wiedemann-Franz ratio should be larger than the standard value, a fact which enables to differentiate the Kondo breakdown scenario from the Hertz-Moriya-Millis framework.

Details

Database :
arXiv
Journal :
Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 156404 (2009)
Publication Type :
Report
Accession number :
edsarx.0811.0638
Document Type :
Working Paper
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.156404