Inhomogeneous Kondo destruction by RKKY correlations

TL;DR

This paper investigates how RKKY interactions influence the distribution and suppression of Kondo temperatures in disordered metals with magnetic impurities, revealing an enhancement of initial inequalities and implications for the Doniach phase diagram.

Contribution

It extends the theoretical framework to account for different Kondo temperatures and analyzes their distribution under RKKY interactions in disordered systems.

Findings

Smaller Kondo temperatures are more strongly suppressed by RKKY interactions.

RKKY interactions can enhance initial inequalities between Kondo temperatures.

Implications for the Doniach diagram in disordered electron systems.

Abstract

The competition between the indirect exchange interaction (IEC) of magnetic impurities in metals and the Kondo effect gives rise to a rich quantum phase diagram, the Doniach Diagram. In disordered metals, both the Kondo temperature and the IEC are widely distributed due to the scattering of the conduction electrons from the impurity potential. Therefore, it is a question of fundamental importance, how this Doniach diagram is modified by the disorder, and if one can still identify separate phases. Recently, it has been investigated the effect of Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) correlations on the Kondo effect of two magnetic impurities, renormalizing the Kondo interaction based on the Bethe-Salpeter equation and performing the poor men's renormalization group (RG) analysis with the RKKY-renormalized Kondo coupling. In the present study, we extend this theoretical framework, allowing for different Kondo temperatures of two RKKY-coupled magnetic impurities due to different local exchange couplings and density of states. As a result, we find that the smaller one of the two Kondo temperatures is suppressed more strongly by the RKKY interaction, thereby enhancing their initial inequality. In order to find out if this relevance of inequalities between Kondo temperatures modifies the distribution of the Kondo temperature in a system of a finite density of randomly distributed magnetic impurities, we present an extension of the RKKY coupled Kondo RG equations. We discuss the implication of these results for the interplay between Kondo coupling and RKKY interaction in disordered electron systems and the Doniach diagram in disordered electron systems.