Fermi and Non-Fermi Liquid Behavior of Local Moment Systems within a Conserving Slave Boson Theory

Abstract

The question of Fermi liquid vs. non-Fermi liquid behavior induced by strong correlations is one of the prominent problems in metallic local moment systems. As standard models for such systems, the SU(N) x SU(M) Anderson impurity models exhibit both Fermi liquid and non-Fermi liquid behavior, depending on their symmetry. Using an auxiliary boson method, we present a generally applicable scheme to select the relevant contributions in the low frequency regime, while preserving the local gauge symmetry of the model. It amounts to a conserving T-matrix approximation (CTMA) including coherent spin flip as well as charge fluctuation processes, which are found to dominate in the Kondo and in the mixed valence regime, respectively. The infrared threshold exponents of the auxiliary particle spectral functions are indicators for the presence of Fermi or non-Fermi liquid behavior in any given model with strong on-site repulsion. We show that, in contrast to earlier auxiliary boson theories, the CTMA recovers the correct exponents in both cases, indicating that it correctly describes both the Fermi and the non-Fermi regimes of the Anderson model.