Energy scales and the non-Fermi liquid behavior in YbRh2Si2

TL;DR

This paper explains the non-Fermi liquid behavior in YbRh2Si2 through the scaling of effective mass near a fermion condensation quantum phase transition, aligning well with experimental thermodynamic and transport data.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the energy scales and non-Fermi liquid behavior in YbRh2Si2 can be described by effective mass scaling at a quantum phase transition, providing a unified theoretical framework.

Findings

Effective mass scaling explains energy scales in YbRh2Si2.

Theoretical results match experimental thermodynamic and transport measurements.

Non-Fermi liquid behavior arises from the effective mass dependence on temperature and magnetic field.

Abstract

Multiple energy scales are detected in measurements of the thermodynamic and transport properties in heavy fermion metals. We demonstrate that the experimental data on the energy scales can be well described by the scaling behavior of the effective mass at the fermion condensation quantum phase transition, and show that the dependence of the effective mass on temperature and applied magnetic fields gives rise to the non-Fermi liquid behavior. Our analysis is placed in the context of recent salient experimental results. Our calculations of the non-Fermi liquid behavior, of the scales and thermodynamic and transport properties are in good agreement with the heat capacity, magnetization, longitudinal magnetoresistance and magnetic entropy obtained in remarkable measurements on the heavy fermion metal YbRh2Si2.