Room Temperature Kondo effect in atom-surface scattering: dynamical 1/N approach

TL;DR

This paper investigates the Kondo effect in atom-surface scattering at room temperature using a dynamical 1/N expansion, providing a more realistic model and analyzing calcium atom scattering off copper surfaces.

Contribution

It introduces the dynamical 1/N expansion with finite Coulomb interaction to improve modeling of atom-surface scattering and compares results with previous approaches.

Findings

Qualitative agreement with previous infinite-U results

Temperature dependence of charge state fractions is robust

Finite Coulomb interaction U affects absolute yields but not qualitative behavior

Abstract

The Kondo effect may be observable in some atom-surface scattering experiments, in particular, those involving alkaline-earth atoms. By combining Keldysh techniques with the NCA approximation to solve the time-dependent Newns-Anderson Hamiltonian in the infinite-U limit, Shao, Nordlander and Langreth found an anomalously strong surface-temperature dependence of the outgoing charge state fractions. Here we employ the dynamical 1/N expansion with finite Coulomb interaction U to provide a more realistic description of the scattering process. We test the accuracy of the 1/N expansion in the spinless N = 1 case against the exact independent-particle solution. We then compare results obtained in the infinite-U limit with the NCA approximation and recover qualitative features found previously. Finally, we analyze the realistic situation of Ca atoms with U = 5.8 eV scattered off Cu(001) surfaces. Although the presence of the doubly-ionized Ca species can change the absolute scattered positive Ca yields, the temperature dependence is qualitatively the same as that found in the infinite-U limit. One of the main difficulties that experimentalists face in attempting to detect this effect is that the atomic velocity must be kept small enough to reduce possible kinematic smearing of the metal's Fermi surface.