Emergent Chiral Metal near a Kondo Breakdown Quantum Phase Transition
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Contributors
Abstract
The destruction of the Kondo effect in a local-moment metal can lead to a topological non-Fermi-liquid phase, dubbed fractionalized Fermi liquid, with spinon-type excitations and an emergent gauge field. We demonstrate that, if the latter displays an internal π-flux structure, a chiral heavy-fermion metal emerges near the Kondo-breakdown transition. Utilizing a parton mean-field theory describing the transition between a conventional heavy Fermi liquid and a U(1) fractionalized Fermi liquid, we find a novel intermediate phase near the transition whose emergent flux pattern spontaneously breaks both translation and time-reversal symmetries. This phase is an orbital antiferromagnet, and we derive a Landau-type theory which shows that such a phase generically emerges from a π-flux spin liquid. We discuss the relevance to pertinent experiments.
Details
Original language | English |
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Article number | 106503 |
Journal | Physical review letters |
Volume | 134 |
Issue number | 10 |
Publication status | Published - 14 Mar 2025 |
Peer-reviewed | Yes |