A mechanism for the strange metal phase in rare-earth intermetallic compounds.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 35238676.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1073/pnas.2116980119 and PMC identifier 8915960.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
SignificanceThe elusive strange metal phase (ground state) was observed in a variety of quantum materials, notably in <i>f</i>-electron-based rare-earth intermetallic compounds. Its emergence has remained unclear. Here, we propose a generic mechanism for this phenomenon driven by the interplay of the gapless fermionic short-ranged antiferromagnetic spin correlation and critical bosonic charge fluctuations near a Kondo breakdown quantum phase transition. It is manifested as a fluctuating Kondo-scattering-stabilized critical (gapless) fermionic spin liquid. It shows [Formula: see text] scaling in dynamical electron scattering rate, a signature of quantum criticality. Our results on quasilinear-in-temperature scattering rate and logarithmic-in-temperature divergence in specific heat coefficient as temperature vanishes were recently seen in CePd[Formula: see text]Ni<i><sub>x</sub></i>Al.