Kondo effect in bosonic spin liquids

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Serge Florens - , Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Author)
  • Lars Fritz - , Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Author)
  • Matthias Vojta - , Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Author)

Abstract

In a metal, a magnetic impurity is fully screened by the conduction electrons at low temperature. In contrast, impurity moments coupled to spin-1 bulk bosons, such as triplet excitations in paramagnets, are only partially screened, even at the bulk quantum critical point. We argue that this difference is not due to the quantum statistics of the host particles but instead related to the structure of the impurity-host coupling, by demonstrating that frustrated magnets with bosonic spinon excitations can display a bosonic version of the Kondo effect. However, the Bose statistics of the bulk implies distinct behavior, such as a weak-coupling impurity quantum phase transition, and perfect screening for a range of impurity spin values. We discuss implications of our results for the compound Cs2CuCl4, as well as possible extensions to multicomponent bosonic gases.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number036601
JournalPhysical review letters
Volume96
Issue number3
Publication statusPublished - 27 Jan 2006
Peer-reviewedYes
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas