Fractional Local Moment and High Temperature Kondo Effect in Rashba-Fermi Gases

TL;DR

This paper explores how a quantum impurity in a Rashba spin-orbit coupled Fermi gas develops a fractional local moment and exhibits a high-temperature Kondo effect, tunable by spin-orbit coupling strength.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of fractional local moments and demonstrates a high-temperature Kondo effect in Rashba-Fermi gases with tunable parameters.

Findings

Impurity develops a fractional local moment.

High-temperature Kondo effect observed.

Kondo temperature tunable via spin-orbit coupling.

Abstract

We investigate the new physics that arises when a correlated quantum impurity hybridizes with Fermi gas with a generalized Rashba spin-orbit coupling produced via a uniform synthetic non-Abelian gauge field. We show that the impurity develops a {\it fractional} local moment which couples anti-ferromagnetically to the Rashba-Fermi gas. This results in a concomitant {\it Kondo effect with a high temperature scale} that can be tuned by the strength of the Rashba spin-orbit coupling.