Theoretical investigation of quantum oscillations of specific heat in Kondo insulators

Abstract

The electronic specific heat of Kondo insulators in magnetic field is studied for the half-filled Kondo lattice model on simple cubic lattice using a low-temperature theory in Kumar representation. The calculated specific heat is found to show quantum oscillations, which appear soon after the inversion transition and become prominent with decreasing Kondo coupling. Interestingly, it is noted that the field derivative of specific heat closely resembles the magnetic quantum oscillations, and exhibits more pronounced oscillations at finite temperatures than the magnetization itself. An empirical Lifshitz-Kosevich fit with two frequencies given by the theory describes these quantum oscillations reasonably well, where the frequencies correspond to the extremal areas on the surface of charge gap, a remnant of the Fermi surface in the insulating case.