Boundary quantum criticality in models of magnetic impurities coupled to bosonic baths

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Serge Florens - , French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) (Author)
  • Lars Fritz - , University of Cologne (Author)
  • Matthias Vojta - , University of Cologne (Author)

Abstract

We investigate quantum impurity problems, where a local magnetic moment is coupled to the spin density of a bosonic environment, leading to bosonic versions of the standard Kondo and Anderson impurity models. In a physical situation, these bosonic environments can correspond either to deconfined spinons in certain classes of Z2 frustrated antiferromagnets, or to particles in a multicomponent Bose gase (in which case the spin degree of freedom is attributed to hyperfine levels). Using renormalization group techniques, we establish that our impurity models, which feature an exchange interaction analogous to Kondo impurities in Fermi liquids, allow flow toward a stable strong-coupling state. Since the low-energy bosons exist around a single point in momentum space, and there is no Fermi surface, an impurity quantum phase transition occurs at intermediate coupling, separating screened and unscreened phases. This behavior is qualitatively different from previously studied spin-isotropic variants of the spin-boson model, which display stable intermediate-coupling fixed points and no screening.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number224420
JournalPhysical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics
Volume75
Issue number22
Publication statusPublished - 15 Jun 2007
Peer-reviewedYes
Externally publishedYes