Metallic Ferromagnetism in the Kondo Lattice
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Metallic ferromagnetism in the Kondo lattice Seiji J. Yamamotoa and Qimiao Sib,1 aNational High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32310-3706; and bDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005 Communicated by M. Brian Maple, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, June 30, 2010 (received for review April 15, 2010) Metallic magnetism is both ancient and modern, occurring in such may then lead to an itinerant ferromagnet (23). With the general familiar settings as the lodestone in compass needles and the hard limitations of the Stoner approach in mind, here we carry out an drive in computers. Surprisingly, a rigorous theoretical basis for me- asymptotically exact analysis of the ferromagnetic state. We are tallic ferromagnetism is still largely missing. The Stoner approach able to do so by using a reference point that differs from either perturbatively treats Coulomb interactions when the latter need to the Stoner or Nagaoka approach (24), and accessing a ferromag- be large, whereas the Nagaoka approach incorporates thermody- netic phase whose excitations are of considerable interest in the namically negligible holes into a half-filled band. Here, we show context of heavy fermion ferromagnets. We should stress that a that the ferromagnetic order of the Kondo lattice is amenable to ferromagnetic order may also arise in different regimes of related an asymptotically exact analysis over a range of interaction para- models, such as in one dimension (25) or in the presence of meters. In this ferromagnetic phase, the conduction electrons and mixed-valency (26). 1 S local moments are strongly coupled but the Fermi surface does not Our model contains a lattice of spin-2 local moments ( i for enclose the latter (i.e., it is “small”). Moreover, non-Fermi-liquid be- each site i) with a ferromagnetic exchange interaction (I < 0), ~ havior appears over a range of frequencies and temperatures. Our a band of conduction electrons (c ~σ, where K is the wavevector σ K ϵ results provide the basis to understand some long-standing puzzles and the spin index) with a dispersion K~ and a characteristic in the ferromagnetic heavy fermion metals, and raise the prospect bandwidth W, and an on-site antiferromagnetic Kondo exchange 0 for a new class of ferromagnetic quantum phase transitions. interaction (JK > ) between the local moments and the spin of the conduction electrons. The corresponding Hamiltonian is Fermi surface ∣ itinerant magnetism ∣ non-Fermi liquid τa † a a a a † σσ0 H ¼ ϵ c c þ I S S þ J S c σ c σ0 : [1] contemporary theme in quantum condensed matter physics ∑ K~ K~σ K~σ ∑ i j ∑ K i i 2 i Aconcerns competing ground states and the accompanying no- K~ hiji i vel excitations (1). With a plethora of different phases, magnetic The symbol τ represents the Pauli matrices, with indices a ∈ heavy fermion materials should reign supreme as the prototype σ ∈ ↑ ↓ for competing order. So far, most of the theoretical scrutiny has fx;y;zg and f ; g. Here I represents the sum of direct ex- focused on antiferromagnetic heavy fermions (2, 3). Nonetheless, change interaction between the local moments and the effective exchange interaction generated by the conduction electron states the list of heavy fermion metals that are known to exhibit ferro- 1 magnetic order continues to grow. An early example subjected to that are not included in Eq. Incorporating this explicit ex- change interaction term allows the study of the global phase dia- extensive studies is CeRu2Ge2 (ref. 4 and references therein). Other ferromagnetic heavy fermion metals include CePt (5), gram of the Kondo lattice systems, and tuning a control para- 0 15 meter in any specific heavy fermion material represents taking CeSix (6), CeAgSb2 (7), and URu2−xRexSi2 at x> . (8, 9). More recently discovered materials include CeRuPO (10) and a cut within this phase diagram. The Hamiltonian above is to be contrasted with models for double-exchange ferromagnets UIr2Zn20 (11). Finally, systems such as UGe2 (12) and URhGe (13) are particularly interesting because they exhibit a supercon- in the context of, for example, manganites, where it is the “Kondo” coupling that is ferromagnetic due to Hund’s rule. ducting dome as their metallic ferromagnetism is tuned toward its ≪ ≪ The parameter region we will focus on is JK jIj W. Here border. Some fascinating and general questions have emerged 0 (14, 15, 16), yet they have hardly been addressed theoretically. we can use the limit JK ¼ as the reference point, which contains One central issue concerns the nature of the Fermi surface: Is the local moments, representing the f-electrons with strong repul- it “large,” encompassing both the local moments and conduction sions, and conduction electrons. As illustrated in Fig. 1, the local 0 electrons as in paramagnetic heavy fermion metals (17, 18), or is moments order in a ferromagnetic ground state because I < , it “small,” incorporating only conduction electrons? Measure- whereas the conduction electrons form a Fermi sea with a Fermi ments of the de Haas–van Alphen (dHvA) effect have suggested surface. A finite but small JK will couple these two components, and its effect is analyzed in terms of a fermion þ boson renorma- that the Fermi surface is small in CeRu2Ge2 (14–16), and have – provided evidence for Fermi surface reconstruction as a function lization group (RG) procedure (27 29). We will use an effective field theory approach, which we outline below and describe in of pressure in UGe2 (19, 20). At the same time, it is traditional to SI Text consider the heavy fermion ferromagnets as having a large Fermi detail in . Though our analysis will focus on this weak surface when their relationship with unconventional supercon- JK regime, the results will be germane to a more extended para- ductivity is discussed (12, 13, 21); an alternative form of the Fermi meter regime through continuity. surface in the ordered state could give rise to a new type of The Heisenberg part of the Hamiltonian, describing the local superconductivity near its phase boundary. All these point to moments alone, is mapped to a continuum field theory (30) in the σ the importance of theoretically understanding the ferromagnetic form of a Quantum Nonlinear Sigma Model (QNL M). In this phases of heavy fermion metals, and this will be the focus of the framework, the local moments are represented by an O(3) field, present work. We consider the Kondo lattice model in which a periodic array Author contributions: S.J.Y. and Q.S. designed research, performed research, and wrote of local moments interact with each other and with a conduction- the paper. electron band. Kondo lattice systems are normally studied in the The authors declare no conflict of interest. paramagnetic state, where Kondo screening leads to heavy quasi- 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: [email protected]. particles in the single-electron excitation spectrum (17). The This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/ Stoner (22) mean field treatment of these heavy quasiparticles doi:10.1073/pnas.1009498107/-/DCSupplemental. 15704–15707 ∣ PNAS ∣ September 7, 2010 ∣ vol. 107 ∣ no. 36 www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1009498107 Downloaded by guest on October 3, 2021 simplification is that the translational symmetry is preserved in the ferromagnetic phase. At the same time, two complications arise. Ferromagnetic order breaks time-reversal symmetry, which is manifested in the Zeeman splitting of the spin up and down bands. In addition, the effective field theory for a local-moment quantum ferromagnet involves a Berry phase term (30) such that Lorentz invariance is broken, even in the continuum limit; the dynamic exponent, connecting ω and q in Eq. 2,isz ¼ 2 instead of 1. The effective field theory, comprising Eqs. 2–5, is subjected to a two-stage RG analysis as detailed in SI Text. Results For energies and momenta above their respective cutoffs, Fig. 1. An illustration of the Kondo lattice. Local moments from f-orbitals ω ∼ ∕ 2 Δ2 ∼ ∕ Δ are in green, and are depicted here to be spin down. Spin-up conduction elec- c ðI W Þ and qc ðKF WÞ , the magnons are coupled trons are in red, which have a higher probability density than the spin-down to the continuum part of the transverse spin excitations of the conduction electrons in blue. The Hamiltonian for the model is given in Eq. 1 conduction electrons, see Fig. 2. Here, the Kondo coupling is re- where σ is the spin index and a refers to the three spin directions. Note that levant in the RG sense below three dimensions. This implies the Einstein summation convention is used on indices. For simplicity, we as- strong coupling between the conduction electrons and the local K2 sume ϵ ~ . The characteristic kinetic energy, W, is defined as W ≡ 1∕ρ0, σ K ¼ 2me moments, and both the QNL M as well as the action for the con- ρ ≡ ∑ δ E − ϵ where 0 K~ ð F K~Þ is the single-particle density of states at the Fermi duction electrons will be modified. Explicitly, the correction to energy (EF ). Both EF and the chemical potential, μ, scale like W. We use the the quadratic part of the QNLσMis ~ Shankar notation with K ¼jKj measured from the center of the Brillouin ω zone. Π ω ≈ 2 ρ 1 γ [6] ðq;~ Þ JK 0 þ i vFq m~, which is constrained nonlinearly with a continuum partition function. Combining the local moments with the conduction elec- where γ is a dimensionless constant prefactor. At the same time, trons, we reach the total partition function: Z ¼ ∫ Dm~D½ψ¯;ψ the conduction electrons acquire the following self-energy δ ~2 ~τ − 1 −S S S S0 S ðm ðx; Þ Þe , where ¼ m þ c þ K .