Visualizing heavy fermions emerging in a quantum critical Kondo lattice

Pegor Aynajian

Joseph Henry Laboratories and Department of Physics

Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 USA

aynajian@princeton.edu


    In solids containing elements with f-orbitals, the interaction between f-electron spins and those of itinerant electrons leads to the development of low-energy fermionic excitations with a heavy effective mass. These excitations are fundamental to the appearance of unconventional superconductivity and non-Fermi liquid behavior observed in actinide- and lanthanide-based compounds. I will present scanning tunneling microscopy data on the emergence of heavy fermion excitations and their correlations in a prototypical family of Ce-115 heavy fermion compounds. I will show, at the atomic scale, the composite nature of these heavy quasiparticles, which arises from quantum entanglement of itinerant conduction and f-electrons and resolve their energy-momentum structure. Finally, I will address the behavior of these heavy quasiparticles in proximity to a quantum critical point.

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