Singular dynamics and pseudogap formation in the underscreened Kondo impurity and Kondo lattice models

TL;DR

This paper develops a large N theoretical framework for underscreened Kondo models, revealing a pseudogap phase and non-Fermi liquid behavior, with implications for lattice systems and experimental observations.

Contribution

It introduces a controlled large N limit for underscreened Kondo models, enabling analysis of their non-Fermi liquid behavior and pseudogap formation.

Findings

Fermi liquid description is invalidated by anomalous scattering.

Continuous power laws replace logarithmic singularities at N=.

Discovery of an insulating pseudogap regime in the underscreened Kondo lattice.

Abstract

We study a generalization of the Kondo model in which the impurity spin is represented by Abrikosov fermions in a rotation group SU(P) larger than the SU(N) group associated to the spin of the conduction electrons, thereby forcing the single electronic bath to underscreen the localized moment. We demonstrate how to formulate a controlled large N limit preserving the property of underscreening, and which can be seen as a ``dual'' theory of the multichannel large N equations usually associated to overscreening. Due to the anomalous scattering on the uncompensated degrees of freedom, the Fermi liquid description of the electronic fluid is invalidated, with the logarithmic singularities known to occur in the S=1 SU(2) Kondo impurity model being replaced by continuous power laws at N=\infty. The present technique can be extended to tackle the related underscreened Kondo lattice model in the large N limit. We discover the occurence of an insulating pseudogap regime in place of the expected renormalized metallic phase of the fully screened case, preventing the establishement of coherence over the lattice. This work and the recent observation of a similar weakly insulating behavior on transport in CeCuAs_2 should give momentum for further studies of underscreened impurity models on the lattice.