Concealed Mott Criticality: Unifying the Kondo Breakdown and Doped Charge-Transfer Insulators

Abstract

I show that the quantum critical points observed in heavy fermions (the `Kondo breakdown') and in doped cuprates can be understood in terms of concealed Mott criticality. In this picture, one species of electrons undergoes a Mott localization transition, in the presence of metallic charge carries. As is shown in a simple toy model, this results in a Fermi surface jump at the transition, as well as mass enhancement on both the `large' and `small' Fermi surface side of the transition, consistent with the experimental observations.

7 pages, 4 figures. Submitted to Physica C for the special issue dedicated to Jan Zaanen