Hidden Caldeira-Leggett dissipation in a Bose-Fermi Kondo model

Abstract

We show that the Bose-Fermi Kondo model (BFKM), which may find applicability both to certain dissipative mesoscopic qubit devices and to heavy fermion systems described by the Kondo lattice model, can be mapped exactly onto the Caldeira-Leggett model. This mapping requires an ohmic bosonic bath and an Ising-type coupling between the latter and the impurity spin. This allows us to conclude unambiguously that there is an emergent Kosterlitz-Thouless quantum phase transition in the BFKM with an ohmic bosonic bath. By applying a bosonic numerical renormalization group approach, we thoroughly probe physical quantities close to the quantum phase transition.