Numerical signatures of ultra-local criticality in a one dimensional Kondo lattice model

• Published in: SciPost physics Vol. 17; no. 2; p. 034
• Main Authors: Nikolaenko, Alexander, Zhang, Ya-Hui
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: SciPost 01.08.2024
• DOI: 10.21468/SciPostPhys.17.2.034
• ISSN: 2542-4653

Heavy fermion criticality has been a long-standing problem in condensed matter physics. Here we study a one-dimensional Kondo lattice model through numerical simulation and observe signatures of local criticality. We vary the Kondo coupling J_K J K at fixed doping x. At large positive J_K J K , we confirm the expected conventional Luttinger liquid phase with 2k_F=\frac{1+x}{2} 2 k F = 1 + x 2 (in units of 2\pi 2 π ), an analogue of the heavy Fermi liquid (HFL) in the higher dimension. In the J_K ≤ 0 J K ≤ 0 side, our simulation finds the existence of a fractional Luttinger liquid (LL \star ⋆ ) phase with 2k_F=\frac{x}{2} 2 k F = x 2 , accompanied by a gapless spin mode originating from localized spin moments, which serves as an analogue of the fractional Fermi liquid (FL \star ⋆ ) phase in higher dimensions. The LL \star ⋆ phase becomes unstable and transitions to a spin-gapped Luther-Emery (LE) liquid phase at small positive J_K J K . Then we mainly focus on the “critical regime” between the LE phase and the LL phase. Approaching the critical point from the spin-gapped LE phase, we often find that the spin gap vanishes continuously, while the spin-spin correlation length in real space stays finite and small. For a certain range of doping, in a point (or narrow region) of J_K J K , the dynamical spin structure factor obtained through the time-evolving block decimation (TEBD) simulation shows dispersion-less spin fluctuations in a finite range of momentum space above a small energy scale (around 0.035 J 0.035 J ) that is limited by the TEBD accuracy. All of these results are unexpected for a regular gapless phase (or critical point) described by conformal field theory (CFT). Instead, they are more consistent with exotic ultra-local criticality with an infinite dynamical exponent z=+ z = + . The numerical discovery here may have important implications on our general theoretical understanding of the strange metals in heavy fermion systems. Lastly, we propose to simulate the model in a bilayer optical lattice with a potential difference.