Quantum spin liquid in an RKKY-coupled two-impurity Kondo system

Abstract

We consider a 2-impurity Kondo system with spin-exchange coupling within the conduction band. Our numerical renormalization group calculations show that for strong intraband spin correlations the competition of these correlations with Kondo spin screening stabilizes a metallic spin-liquid phase of the localized spins without geometric frustration. For weak Kondo coupling the spin liquid and the Kondo singlet phase are separated by two quantum phase transitions and an intermediate RKKY spin-dimer phase, while beyond a critical coupling they are connected by a crossover. The results suggest how a quantum spin liquid may be realized in heavy-fermion systems near a spin-density wave instability.