Concealed Mott Criticality: Unifying the Kondo Breakdown and Doped Charge-Transfer Insulators

TL;DR

This paper proposes that quantum critical points in heavy fermions and doped cuprates are unified under a concealed Mott criticality framework, explaining Fermi surface changes and mass enhancement observed experimentally.

Contribution

It introduces a unified theoretical perspective linking Kondo breakdown and charge-transfer insulators through Mott criticality, supported by a simple toy model.

Findings

Fermi surface jump at the transition

Mass enhancement on both sides of the transition

Consistent explanation of experimental observations

Abstract

I show that the quantum critical points observed in heavy fermions (the `Kondo breakdown') and in doped cuprates can be understood in terms of concealed Mott criticality. In this picture, one species of electrons undergoes a Mott localization transition, in the presence of metallic charge carries. As is shown in a simple toy model, this results in a Fermi surface jump at the transition, as well as mass enhancement on both the `large' and `small' Fermi surface side of the transition, consistent with the experimental observations.