Berlin 2008 – scientific programme

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TT: Fachverband Tiefe Temperaturen

TT 32: Correlated Electrons: Poster Session

TT 32.10: Poster

Thursday, February 28, 2008, 14:00–18:00, Poster B

Heavy-fermion metals with hybridization nodes: Unconventional Fermi liquids and competing phases — •Matthias Vojta and Heidrun Weber — Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Köln, 50937 Köln, Germany

Microscopic models for heavy-fermion materials often assume a local, i.e., momentum-independent, hybridization between the conduction band and the local-moment f electrons. Motivated by recent experiments, we consider situations where this neglect of momentum dependence is inappropriate, namely when the hybridization function has nodes in momentum space. We explore the thermodynamic and optical properties of the highly anisotropic heavy Fermi liquid, resulting from Kondo screening in a higher angular-momentum channel. The dichotomy in momentum space has interesting consequences: While e.g. the low-temperature specific heat is dominated by heavy quasiparticles, the electrical conductivity at intermediate temperatures is carried by unhybridized light electrons. We then discuss aspects of the competition between Kondo effect and ordering phenomena induced by inter-moment exchange: We propose that the strong momentum-space anisotropy plays a vital role in selecting competing phases. Explicit results are obtained for the interplay of unconventional hybridization with unconventional, magnetically mediated, superconductivity, utilizing variants of large-N mean-field theory. We make connections to recent experiments on CeCoIn5 and other heavy-fermion materials.