Renormalization of single-ion magnetic anisotropy in the absence of Kondo effect

TL;DR

This paper investigates how single-ion magnetic anisotropy in quantum spins is renormalized by conduction electron interactions, even without the Kondo effect, highlighting the roles of hybridization and charge fluctuations.

Contribution

It demonstrates that inelastic spin excitations are renormalized by exchange coupling and charge fluctuations independently of the Kondo effect in non-degenerate ground states.

Findings

Renormalization occurs without Kondo effect in non-degenerate ground states.

Charge fluctuations can mimic Fano resonance in spectra.

Hybridization affects spin flip excitations despite absence of Kondo.

Abstract

Inelastic spin flip excitations associated with single-ion magnetic anisotropy of quantum spins, can be strongly renormalized by Kondo exchange coupling to the conduction electrons in the substrate, as shown recently for the case of Co adatoms on CuN$_2$ islands. In this case differential conductance spectra show zero-bias anomalies due to a Kondo effect of the doubly degenerate ground state, and finite-bias step features due to spin flip excitations. Here I consider spin-1 quantum magnets with positive uniaxial anisotropy, where the ground state is non-degenerate and hence the Kondo effect does not take place. Nevertheless the renormalization of inelastic spin excitations due to exchange coupling by hybridization of the quantum spin with the conduction electrons still takes place despite the complete absence of the Kondo effect in the ground state. Additionally, I show that away from particle-hole symmetry, charge fluctuations have a similar effect to Kondo exchange coupling, leading to the renormalization of spin flip excitations. However, in contrast to the renormalization by Kondo exchange, charge fluctuations lead to asymmetric spectra, which for strong charge fluctuations can mimic Fano behavior.