# Kondo Screening in Gapless Magnetic Alloys

## Abstract

The low-energy physics of a spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ Kondo impurity in a gapless host, where a density of band states $`\rho _0(ϵ)=|ϵ|^r/(|ϵ|^r+\beta ^r)`$ vanishes at the Fermi level $`ϵ=0`$, is studied by the Bethe ansatz. The growth of the parameter $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_r=\beta \mathrm{g}^{1/r}`$ (where $`\mathrm{g}`$ is an exchange constant) is shown to drive the system ground state from the Kondo regime with the screened impurity spin to the Anderson regime, where the impurity spin is unscreened, however, in a weak magnetic field $`H`$, it exceeds its free value, $`S_i(H)>\frac{1}{2}`$, due to a strong coupling to a band. It is shown also that a sufficiently strong potential scattering at the impurity site destroys the Anderson regime.

A growing body  of theoretical studies of unconventional magnetic alloys, initiated by Withoff and Fradkin , shows that the standard picture of the Kondo effect in metals  should be fundamentally revised in the case of so called “gapless” hosts, where an effective density of band states vanishes precisely at the Fermi level $`ϵ_F`$ as $`|ϵϵ_F|^r`$ with $`r>0`$. “Poor-man’s” scaling arguments , large-$`N`$ studies , and numerical renormalization group calculations  show that the Kondo screening of the impurity spin in gapless systems occurs only if an effective electron-impurity coupling exceeds some critical value. Otherwise, an impurity decouples from a band.

However, a Bethe ansatz (BA) analysis of the ground state properties of an infinite-$`U`$ Anderson impurity both in a BCS superconductor (a “gapped” Fermi system)  and in a gapless host  have shown no weak-coupling regime in the low-energy behavior of the system. The ground state of an unconventional Anderson system preserves basic characteristic features of the metallic version. The appearance of a sufficiently small gap or a pseudogap in a band dispersion results only in some corrections to the standard solution . In contrast to the metallic version, the unconventional Anderson systems exhibit, however, a nonuniversal behavior, that could explain discrepancies between a BA solution and results of studies based on scaling arguments.

In this Letter, we employ hidden integrability of a spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ Kondo impurity in an unconventional host  to explore the low-energy physics of gapless systems, where an effective density of band states can be modeled by

$$\rho _0(ϵ)\frac{dk(ϵ)}{dϵ}=\frac{|ϵϵ_F|^r}{|ϵϵ_F|^r+\beta ^r},r>0.$$
(1)   
Here, $`ϵ_F`$ is the Fermi energy, $`k(ϵ)`$ is the inverse band dispersion, and the parameter $`\beta `$ characterizes the size of domain with a nonmetallic behavior of $`\rho _0(ϵ)`$.

In the Bethe ansatz approach to the theory of dilute magnetic alloys , pioneered by Wiegmann  and Andrei , the spectrum of a free host is alternatively described in terms of interacting Bethe particles rather than in terms of free electrons with spin “up” and “down”, while an impurity plays a role of an additional scattering center for Bethe particles. Because of separation of the charge and spin degrees of freedom, the spectrum of Bethe excitations, in general, contains charge excitations, spin waves, and their bound complexes.

In the Kondo model, an electron-impurity scattering is energy independent, therefore the Bethe spectrum of the model does not contain charge complexes. The ground state of the system is composed of charge excitations and spin waves only. The spin waves screen the impurity spin in the zero-temperature limit $`T0`$.

In the Anderson model, in contrast, the ground state is composed of charge complexes, in which two charge excitations are bound to a spin wave. Since charge complexes are singlets, the spin of a spinless Anderson impurity is naturally quenched in the ground state of the system.

In unconventional hosts, scattering amplitudes acquire an additional energy dependence because of an energy dependent density of band states. In the Anderson system, scattering amplitudes essentially depend on energy already in a metallic host. An additional dependence only renormalizes them slightly near the Fermi level, that does not lead to any drastic changes in the low-energy physics of the system in comparison with the metallic version.

In the Kondo system, the situation is clear to be very different. Since scattering amplitudes in the standard Kondo model are energy independent, the appearance of energy dependence in an unconventional host could really lead to drastic changes in the physics of the system. As in the Anderson models, the Bethe spectrum of the gapless Kondo systems is shown to contain charge complexes. As usual, only the simplest complexes contribute to the ground state of the system. Therefore, one may restrict a further consideration to (i) charge excitations, (ii) spin waves, and (iii) the simplest charge complexes, in which two charge excitations are bound to a spin wave. To simplify our terminology, we use hereafter the terms “particles” and “complexes” to refer to charge excitation and charge complexes, respectively.

One can propose two different physical scenarios of the system behavior when the parameter $`\beta `$ increases from its metallic value $`\beta =0`$. (i) One may expect that at arbitrarily large $`\beta `$ the ground state of a gapless system preserves basic characteristic features of the standard Kondo model, so that the impurity spin is screened. However, the Kondo temperature decreases to extremely low temperatures at large $`\beta `$, and the Kondo effect thus practically disappears. (ii) In the second scenario, one may expect that the ground states of a gapless system with a sufficiently large $`\beta `$ and the metallic system are qualitatively different, so that the impurity spin in a gapless host is unscreened. In terms of BA language, it is obvious that the only way to suppress the Kondo screening is to reconstruct the ground state in such a way that all spin waves are built into singlet complexes, as it takes place in the Anderson systems.

To explore the low-energy physics of the system, we derive the thermodynamic BA equations for renormalized (fundamental) energies of Bethe excitations at a finite temperature $`T`$ and then study the limit $`T0`$. Solving these equations at $`T=0`$, we find the ground state of the system as a state, in which all states of Bethe excitations with negative energies are filled out, while all states with positive energies are empty.

To derive the thermodynamic BA equations one has to fix the exponent $`r`$ in Eq. (1). In the cases of $`r=\frac{1}{2}`$, $`r=1`$, and $`r=2`$, bare energies of complexes are negative, therefore they essentially affect the ground state properties of the system. However, this is not sufficient yet to suppress the Kondo screening. The second physical scenario presupposes that complexes expel all particles and spin waves from the ground state of the system. Only in this case, the Kondo screening is suppressed completely.

The qualitative behaviors of the systems in all three cases mentioned above are very similar, while the BA mathematics in the $`r=\frac{1}{2}`$ and $`r=1`$ cases is more tedious. To keep our mathematics as simple as possible, we focus in this Letter on the $`r=2`$ case, which is, however, of particular physical interest .

We show that at a sufficiently large energy scale of complexes $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_r=\beta \mathrm{g}^{1/r}`$, where $`\mathrm{g}`$ is an effective coupling constant, the renormalized energy of particles is positive over the whole band. The growth of the parameter $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_r`$ drives thus the ground state of the system from the Kondo type, in which spin waves screen the impurity spin, to the Anderson type, in which all spin waves are built into singlet complexes, and, therefore, the impurity spin is unscreened, $`S_i=\frac{1}{2}`$.

Nevertheless, as in the case of the Anderson system, we still deal with a strong-coupling regime of our system. To clarify this point we study magnetic properties of the ground state of the system in the Anderson type regime. Despite the impurity spin is unscreened and the magnetic susceptibility of the impurity $`\chi _i`$ diverges in a weak external magnetic field $`H`$, $`\chi _iH^{1/3}`$, the impurity does not behave like a “free” localized magnetic moment. Indeed, in a magnetic field, a part of complexes decay into particles and spin waves. While spin waves disappear to create a finite magnetization of a host, particles bring a positive contribution to the unscreened impurity spin. Thus, at $`T=0`$ the impurity spin in a magnetic field exceeds its free magnitude, $`S_i(H)>\frac{1}{2}`$, that is clear to have no analogy in a free impurity behavior.

An effective 1D Hamiltonian of the system is written in terms of the Fermi operators $`c_\sigma (ϵ)`$ which refer to a band electron with spin $`\sigma =,`$ in an $`s`$-wave state of energy $`ϵ`$,

$$=\underset{\sigma }{}\frac{dϵ}{2\pi }ϵc_\sigma ^{}(ϵ)c_\sigma (ϵ)+\underset{\sigma ,\sigma ^{}}{}\frac{dϵ}{2\pi }\frac{dϵ^{}}{2\pi }I(ϵ,ϵ^{})c_\sigma ^{}(ϵ)\left(\stackrel{}{\sigma }_{\sigma \sigma ^{}}\stackrel{}{S}\right)c_\sigma ^{}(ϵ^{})$$
(2)   
Here, $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }`$ are the Pauli matrices and $`\stackrel{}{S}`$ is the impurity spin operator. The electron energies and momenta in Eq. (2) and hereafter are taken relative to the Fermi values, which are set to be equal to zero. The effective exchange coupling, $`I(ϵ,ϵ^{})=\frac{1}{2}I\sqrt{\rho _0(ϵ)\rho _0(ϵ^{})}`$, involve the exchange coupling constant $`I`$ and the density of band states $`\rho _0(ϵ)`$.

At an arbitrary density of band states, the model (1) is diagonalized by the following BA equations :

$`\mathrm{exp}(ik_jL)\theta _{\frac{1}{2}}(u_j+1/\mathrm{g})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha =1}{\overset{M}{}}}\theta _1(u_j\lambda _\alpha ),`$ (4)   
$`\theta _1(\lambda _\alpha +1/\mathrm{g}){\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}}\theta _1(\lambda _\alpha u_j)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\beta =1}{\overset{M}{}}}\theta _2(\lambda _\alpha \lambda _\beta ),`$ (5)   
where $`\theta _\nu (x)=(xi\nu /2)/(x+i\nu /2)`$, $`k_j=k(\omega _j)`$ and $`\omega _j`$ are electron momenta and energies, $`N`$ is the total number of electrons on an interval of size $`L`$ and $`MN/2`$ is the number of electrons with spin “down”. The eigenenergy $`E`$ and the $`z`$ component of the total spin of the system $`S^z`$ are given by

$$E=\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\omega _j,S^z=\frac{1}{2}+\frac{N}{2}M,$$
(6)   
and an energy dependence of a charge “rapidity” $`u_j=u(\omega _j)`$ reads 

$$u(\omega )=\frac{2}{I}\frac{1}{\rho _0(\omega )}\frac{3}{32}I\rho _0(\omega )\frac{1}{\mathrm{g}},$$
(7)   
where $`\mathrm{g}^1=2/I3I/322/I`$ is an effective coupling constant. The second term in $`u(\omega )`$ is much smaller than the first one at all $`\omega `$, however, as it will be clearly seen in what follows, this term plays a crucial role in the low-energy physics of the system, and must be kept.

In a metal, where $`\beta =0`$, and hence $`\rho _0=1`$ and $`u_j=0`$, Eqs. (3) reduce to the BA equations of the standard Kondo model. However, from the point of view of the BA mathematics, they are similar to the BA equations of the Anderson rather than the Kondo system. As in the Anderson model, apart from particles with real energies and momenta, the BA equations (3) admit also complexes in which $`2n`$ charge excitations are bound to a spin complex of order $`n`$. Thus, an energy dependence of charge rapidity in an unconventional host essentially enriches the Bethe spectrum of the Kondo system. As in the Anderson system, only complexes of the lowest order, $`n=1`$, contribute to the low-energy physics of the system. Therefore, we restrict our consideration to the simplest complexes, in which two charge excitations with complex energies $`\omega _\pm (\lambda )`$,

$$u(\omega _\pm )=\lambda \pm \frac{i}{2},$$
(8)   
and corresponding momenta $`k_\pm (\lambda )k[\omega _\pm (\lambda )]`$ are bound to a spin wave with a rapidity $`\lambda `$, provided that $`\text{Im}k_+(\lambda )>0`$. A bare energy of a complex

$$\xi _0(\lambda )=\omega _+(\lambda )+\omega _{}(\lambda )=2\mathrm{\Gamma }X(\lambda )2\gamma x(\lambda ),$$
(10)   
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\beta /\sqrt{\mathrm{g}}`$, $`\gamma =\frac{3}{32}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{\Gamma }=\frac{3}{32}\beta \sqrt{\mathrm{g}}`$, and

$`X(\lambda )`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{2}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{d\lambda }}\left(\lambda +\sqrt{\lambda ^2+1/4}\right)^{1/2},`$ (11)   
$`x(\lambda )`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(\lambda +1/\mathrm{g})\sqrt{\lambda }}},`$ (12)   
is negative at all $`\lambda `$. Here, we took into account a smallness of the second term in Eq. (3d) which results in the small second term in Eq. (5a), $`\gamma \mathrm{\Gamma }`$. Moreover, for the latter we use only its asymptotic form at $`\lambda 1`$.

In the standard manner , the thermodynamic BA equations of our model for the renormalized energies of particles, $`\epsilon (\omega )`$, spin waves, $`\kappa (\lambda )`$, and complexes, $`\xi (\lambda )`$, are found to be

$`\epsilon (\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`\omega {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}H{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\lambda a_1[u(\omega )\lambda ]F[\kappa (\lambda )]+{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\lambda a_1[u(\omega )\lambda ]F[\xi (\lambda )],`$ (14)   
$`\kappa (\lambda )`$ $`=`$ $`H+{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\omega u^{}(\omega )a_1[\lambda u(\omega )]F[\epsilon (\omega )]+{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\lambda ^{}a_2(\lambda \lambda ^{})F[\kappa (\lambda ^{})],`$ (15)   
$`\xi (\lambda )`$ $`=`$ $`\xi _0(\lambda )+{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\omega u^{}(\omega )a_1[\lambda h(\omega )]F[\epsilon (\omega )]+{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\lambda ^{}a_2(\lambda \lambda ^{})F[\xi (\lambda ^{})].`$ (16)   
Here, $`F[f(x)]T\mathrm{ln}\{1+\mathrm{exp}[f(x)/T]\}`$, $`u^{}(\omega )=du/d\omega `$, $`a_\nu (x)=(2\nu /\pi )(\nu ^2+4x^2)^1`$, and $`H`$ is an external magnetic field.

In the zero-temperature limit, $`T0`$, all states with negative energies must be filled out, while all states with positive energies must be empty. In the absence of a magnetic field, the magnetization of a host must be equal to zero. This implies that at $`H=0`$ the number of particles in the system is twice bigger than the number of spin waves. Therefore, at $`H=0`$ the ground state is composed of charge complexes only if

$$\kappa (\lambda )>0,\lambda (\mathrm{},\mathrm{});\epsilon (\omega )>0,\omega (ϵ_F,ϵ_F),$$
(17)   
The energy of spin waves is easily seen from Eq. (6b) to be positive, provided $`\epsilon (\omega )>0`$. Therefore, in the limit $`T0`$, the conditions (7) reduce to $`\epsilon (\omega )>0`$ at $`H=0`$, where

$$\epsilon (\omega )=\omega \frac{1}{2}H_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\lambda a_1[u(\omega )\lambda ]\xi (\lambda ),$$
(19)   
and the energy $`\xi (\lambda )`$ is found from the equation

$$\xi (\lambda )=\xi _0(\lambda )_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\lambda ^{}a_2(\lambda \lambda ^{})\xi (\lambda ^{}).$$
(20)   
Inserting a solution of Eq. (8b) into Eq. (8a), one obtains

$$\epsilon (\omega )=\omega \frac{1}{2}H+2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\lambda s[u(\omega )\lambda ]X(\lambda )+2\gamma _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\lambda s[u(\omega )\lambda ]x(\lambda ),$$
(22)   
where $`s(x)=[2\mathrm{cosh}(\pi x)]^1`$.

As $`\omega 0`$ the rapidity $`u(\omega )\mathrm{}`$, and we find

$$\epsilon (\omega )\omega \frac{1}{2}H+|\omega |+\gamma \frac{|\omega |^3}{\mathrm{\Gamma }^3}+𝒪\left(|\omega |^5\right).$$
(23)   
At $`\omega <0`$, the first and third terms are cancelled, while the forth term determines a small positive contribution to the particle energy. In a sufficiently weak magnetic field, the function $`\epsilon (\omega )`$ is negative in a small domain between points $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{}\mathrm{\Gamma }(H/2\gamma )^{1/3}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_+H/4`$, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\pm `$ are found from the equation $`\epsilon (\mathrm{\Omega }_\pm )=0`$.

As $`\omega \mathrm{}`$ the function $`\epsilon (\omega )\omega +\text{const}`$, and hence it has the third zero, at some point $`\omega =\mathrm{\Omega }<0`$. The critical magnitudes of the parameters at which particles and spin waves disappear from the ground state of the system are clear to be determined by the condition $`\mathrm{\Omega }=ϵ_F`$, or

$$2𝒢_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\lambda s(𝒢^2\lambda )\left[X(\lambda )+\frac{3}{32}\mathrm{g}x(\lambda )\right]=1,$$
(24)   
where $`𝒢=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{cr}}/ϵ_F`$. In the absence of the second term in the brackets, the left-hand side of Eq. (10) is less than $`1`$, but it is asymptotically very close to $`1`$ already at $`𝒢1`$. Therefore, an estimate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{cr}}ϵ_F`$ works very well at all reasonable values of the coupling constant $`\mathrm{g}`$.

Thus, at $`\mathrm{\Gamma }<\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{cr}}`$, the ground state of the system is composed of particles, spin waves, and complexes. The complexes essentially affect the ground state properties, however, as in a metal, “free” spin waves, unbuilt into complexes, screen completely the impurity spin in the absence of a magnetic field, $`S_i=0`$. At $`\mathrm{\Gamma }>\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{cr}}`$, the scattering on complexes renormalizes the energy of particles to positive values over the whole band. In other words, particles and spin waves are completely expelled from the ground state of the system, which is composed now of singlet complexes only. Therefore, the impurity spin is unscreened and equal to its free magnitude, $`S_i=\frac{1}{2}`$, in the absence of a magnetic field.

Despite the impurity spin is unscreened, the impurity is easily seen to be strongly coupled to a band. In the continuous limit , Eqs. (3) for the system ground state take the form of integral equation for the densities of states of particles, $`\rho (\omega )`$, and complexes, $`\sigma (\lambda )`$,

$`\rho (\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{L}}\delta [u(\omega )+1/\mathrm{g}]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}\rho _0(\omega )u^{}(\omega ){\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\lambda a_1[u(\omega )\lambda ]\sigma (\lambda )`$ (26)   
$`\sigma (\lambda )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{L}}\mathrm{\Delta }(\lambda +1/\mathrm{g})+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{dp(\lambda )}{d\lambda }}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\lambda ^{}a_2(\lambda \lambda ^{})\sigma (\lambda ^{}){\displaystyle _\mathrm{\Omega }_{}^{\mathrm{\Omega }_+}}𝑑\omega a_1[\lambda u(\omega )]\rho (\omega ).`$ (27)   
Here, $`p(\lambda )=k_+(\lambda )+k_{}(\lambda )`$ is the momentum of a complex, while the functions $`\delta [u(\omega )]=u^{}(\omega )a_{\frac{1}{2}}[u(\omega )]`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\lambda )=a_{\frac{3}{2}}(\lambda )a_1(\lambda )a_{\frac{1}{2}}(\lambda )`$ describe the scattering of particles and complexes at the impurity site. Separating the densities into the host and impurity parts, $`\rho (\omega )=\rho _h(\omega )+L^1\rho _i(\omega )`$, we find for the impurity spin

$$S_i=\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{2}_\mathrm{\Omega }_{}^{\mathrm{\Omega }_+}𝑑\omega \rho _i(\omega ).$$
(28)   
Since complexes carry no spin, they do not contribute to the impurity spin. At $`H=0`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\pm =0`$, and the impurity spin is equal to its free magnitude, $`S_i=\frac{1}{2}`$. In the presence of an arbitrarily weak field, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\pm 0`$, the unscreened impurity spin acquires a positive contribution due to a strong coupling to the host band. In a weak field, the last term in the right-hand side of Eq. (11b) is small and can be omitted in the zero-order computations. Then, taking into account that $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\lambda )\lambda ^4`$ as $`\lambda \mathrm{}`$, one obtains $`\rho _i(\omega )\delta [u(\omega )]`$ as $`H0`$, and the impurity spin is found to be

$$S_i=\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{8\pi }\left(\frac{H}{2\gamma }\right)^{2/3}+𝒪(H^2).$$
(29)   
While the magnetic susceptibility of the host vanishes, $`\chi _hH^2`$, the impurity susceptibility, $`\chi _iH^{1/3}`$, diverges as $`H0`$. Thus, the Nozières theory  based on the Fermi liquid approach is not generalized to the case of a gapless host.

Finally, it should be noted that the unscreened impurity spin regime is very sensitive to a potential (spin independent) scattering at the impurity site. While in a metal potential scattering does not play any essential role , in a gapless host, it is essentially affect the expression for charge rapidity $`u(\omega )`$. If a potential scattering with a coupling constant $`V`$ is taken into account , the expression (3d) takes the form

$$u(\omega )=\frac{2}{I}[\rho _0^1(\omega )1]+\frac{\left(V+\frac{1}{4}I\right)\left(V\frac{3}{4}I\right)}{2I}[\rho _0(\omega )1]$$

At $`V=0`$ the second positive term has been shown to result in expelling particles from the system ground state. It is clear that if $`V`$ lies outside the interval $`(I/4,3I/4)`$, the sign of this term is negative, that immediately destroys the Anderson (unscreened impurity spin) regime.

I am thankful to S. John for stimulating discussions.