Emergent Chiral Metal near a Kondo Breakdown Quantum Phase Transition

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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 languageEnglish
Article number106503
JournalPhysical review letters
Volume134
Issue number10
Publication statusPublished - 14 Mar 2025
Peer-reviewedYes

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas