Quantum phase transitions, frustration, and the Fermi surface in the Kondo lattice model

Abstract

The quantum phase transition from a spin-Peierls phase with a small Fermi surface to a paramagnetic Luttinger-liquid phase with a large Fermi surface is studied in the framework of a one-dimensional Kondo-Heisenberg model that consists of an electron gas away from half filling, coupled to a spin-1/2 chain by Kondo interactions. The Kondo spins are further coupled to each other with isotropic nearest-neighbor and next-nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic Heisenberg interactions which are tuned to the Majumdar-Ghosh point. Focusing on three-eighths filling and using the density-matrix renormalization-group (DMRG) method, we show that the zero-temperature transition between the phases with small and large Fermi momenta appears continuous, and involves a new intermediate phase where the Fermi surface is not well defined. The intermediate phase is spin gapped and has Kondo-spin correlations that show incommensurate modulations. Our results appear incompatible with the local picture for the quantum phase transition in heavy fermion compounds, which predicts an abrupt change in the size of the Fermi momentum.

9 pages, 8 figures

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• Nonlocal Kondo effect and two-fluid picture revealed in an exactly solvable model
• Hybridization oscillation in the one-dimensional Kondo-Heisenberg model with Kondo holes
• Correlations and confinement of excitations in an asymmetric Hubbard ladder
• Magnon Bose-Einstein Condensation and Superconductivity in a Frustrated Kondo Lattice
• SU($\mathbf{N}$) Kondo-Heisenberg chain: Phase diagram, Ising criticality, and the coexistence of heavy quasiparticles and valence bond solid order
• Algebraic Hastatic Order in One-Dimensional Two-Channel Kondo Lattice
• Emergent Pair Density Wave Order Across a Lifshitz Transition