Roles of Critical Valence Fluctuations in Ce- and Yb-Based Heavy Fermion Metals

The roles of critical valence fluctuations of Ce and Yb are discussed as a key origin of several anomalies observed in Ce- and Yb-based heavy fermion systems. Recent development of the theory has revealed that a magnetic field is an efficient control parameter to induce the critical end point of the first-order valence transition. Metamagnetism and non-Fermi liquid behavior caused by this mechanism are discussed by comparing favorably with CeIrIn5, YbAgCu4, and YbIr2Zn20. The interplay of the magnetic order and valence fluctuations offers a key concept for understanding Ce- and Yb-based systems. It is shown that suppression of the magnetic order by enhanced valence fluctuations gives rise to the coincidence of the magnetic-transition point and valence-crossover point at absolute zero as a function of pressure or magnetic field. The interplay is shown to resolve the outstanding puzzle in CeRhIn5 in a unified way. The broader applicability of this newly clarified mechanism is discussed by surveying promising materials such as YbAuCu4, beta-YbAlB4, and YbRh2Si2.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures, invited paper in special issue on strongly correlated electron system

Weak and strong coupling limits of the two-dimensional Fr\"ohlich polaron with spin-orbit Rashba interaction

The continuous progress in fabricating low-dimensional systems with large spin-orbit couplings has reached a point in which nowadays materials may display spin-orbit splitting energies ranging from a few to hundreds of meV. This situation calls for a better understanding of the interplay between the spin-orbit coupling and other interactions ubiquitously present in solids, in particular when the spin-orbit splitting is comparable in magnitude with characteristic energy scales such as the Fermi energy and the phonon frequency. In this article, the two-dimensional Fr\"ohlich electron-phonon problem is reformulated by introducing the coupling to a spin-orbit Rashba potential, allowing for a description of the spin-orbit effects on the electron-phonon interaction. The ground state of the resulting Fr\"ohlich-Rashba polaron is studied in the weak and strong coupling limits of the electron-phonon interaction for arbitrary values of the spin-orbit splitting. The weak coupling case is studied within the Rayleigh-Schr\"odinger perturbation theory, while the strong-coupling electron-phonon regime is investigated by means of variational polaron wave functions in the adiabatic limit. It is found that, for both weak and strong coupling polarons, the ground state energy is systematically lowered by the spin-orbit interaction, indicating that the polaronic character is strengthened by the Rashba coupling. It is also shown that, consistently with the lowering of the ground state, the polaron effective mass is enhanced compared to the zero spin-orbit limit. Finally, it is argued that the crossover between weakly and strongly coupled polarons can be shifted by the spin-orbit interaction.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Antiferromagnetic order in CeCoIn5 oriented by spin-orbital coupling

An incommensurate spin density wave ($Q$ phase) confined inside the superconducting state at high basal plane magnetic field is an unique property of the heavy fermion metal CeCoIn$_5$. The neutron scattering experiments and the theoretical studies point out that this state come out from the soft mode condensation of magnetic resonance excitations. We show that the fixation of direction of antiferromagnetic modulations by a magnetic field reported by Gerber et al., Nat. Phys. {\bf 10}, 126 (2014) is explained by spin-orbit coupling. This result, obtained on the basis of quite general phenomenological arguments, is supported by the microscopic derivation of the $\chi_{zz}$ susceptibility dependence on the mutual orientation of the basal plane magnetic field and the direction of modulation of spin polarization in a multi-band metal.Comment: 7 pages plus 2 pages with 2 figure

Moduli space volume of vortex and localization

Volume of moduli space of BPS vortices on a compact genus h Riemann surface Sigma_h is evaluated by means of topological field theory and localization technique. Vortex in Abelian gauge theory with a single charged scalar field (ANO vortex) is studied first and is found that the volume of the moduli space agrees with the previous results obtained more directly by integrating over the moduli space metric. Next we extend the evaluation to non-Abelian gauge groups and multi-flavors of scalar fields in the fundamental representation. We find that the result of localization can be consistently understood in terms of moduli matrix formalism wherever possible. More details are found in our paper in Prog.Theor.Phys.126 (2011) 637.Comment: 10 pages, talk at the international conference "quantum theory and symmetries 7" in prague, august 7-13, 201