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Defects in Heavy-Fermion Materials: Unveiling Strong Correlations in Real Space
Complexity in materials often arises from competing interactions at the
atomic length scale. One such example are the strongly correlated heavy-fermion
materials where the competition between Kondo screening and antiferromagnetic
ordering is believed to be the origin of their puzzling non-Fermi-liquid
properties. Insight into such complex physical behavior in strongly correlated
electron systems can be gained by impurity doping. Here, we develop a
microscopic theoretical framework to demonstrate that defects implanted in
heavy-fermion materials provide an opportunity for unveiling competing
interactions and their correlations in real space. Defect-induced perturbations
in the electronic and magnetic correlations possess characteristically
different spatial patterns that can be visualized via their spectroscopic
signatures in the local density of states or non-local spin susceptibility.
These real space patterns provide insight into the complex electronic structure
of heavy-fermion materials, the light or heavy character of the perturbed
states, and the hybridization between them. The strongly correlated nature of
these materials also manifests itself in highly non-linear quantum interference
effects between defects that can drive the system through a first-order phase
transition to a novel inhomogeneous ground state.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure
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