Anomalous Behavior of Thermodynamic Properties of Strongly Correlated Fermi Systems

Abstract

Thermodynamic characteristics of Fermi systems are investigated in the vicinity of a phase transition where the effective mass diverges and the single-particle spectrum becomes flat. It is demonstrated that at extremely low temperatures $T$, the flattening of the spectrum is reflected in non-Fermi-liquid behavior of the inverse susceptibility $\chi^{-1}(T) \sim T^{\alpha}$ and the specific heat $C(T)/T\sim T^{-\alpha}$, with the critical index $\alpha=2/3$. In the presence of an external static magnetic field $H$, both these quantities are found to exhibit a scaling behavior, e.g. $\chi^{-1}(T,H)=\chi^{-1}(T,0)+ T^{2/3}F(H/T)$, in agreement with available experimental data.