Universal Behavior in Heavy Electron Materials

Abstract

We present our finding that an especially simple scaling expression describes the formation of a new state of quantum matter, the Kondo Fermi liquid (KL) in heavy electron materials. Emerging at $T^*$ as a result of the collective coherent hybridization of localized f electrons and conduction electrons, the KL possesses a non-Landau density of states varying as $(1-T/T^*)^{3/2}[1+\ln(T^*/T)]$. We show that four independent experimental probes verify this scaling behavior and that for CeIrIn$_5$ the KL state density is in excellent agreement with the recent microscopic calculations of hybridization in this material by Shim, Haule, and Kotliar.