Universality in Heavy Fermions Revisited

TL;DR

This paper revisits and extends a scaling analysis of pressure experiments in heavy fermion systems, demonstrating that a one-parameter scaling describes their critical behavior and clarifying the underlying physics and theoretical models.

Contribution

It provides an expanded scaling analysis, explicitly calculates enhancement factors, and discusses a microscopic theory consistent with experimental data.

Findings

Heavy fermion systems are near criticality with one-parameter scaling.

The scaling approach is validated and its breakdown is explained.

Exponents for non-Fermi liquid behavior are derived.

Abstract

A previous scaling analysis of pressure experiments in heavy fermion is reviewed and enlarged. We show that the critical exponents obtained from this analysis indicate that a one-parameter scaling describes these experiments. We obtain explicitly the enhancemente factors showing that these systems are indeed near criticality and that the scaling approach is appropriate. The physics responsible for the one-parameter scaling and breakdown of hyperscaling is clarified. We discuss a microsocopic theory that is in agreement with the experiments. The scaling theory is generalized for the case the shift and crossover exponents are different. The exponents governing the physical behavior along the non-Fermi liquid trajectory are obtained for this case.