Heavy-fermion hybridization waves from Dirac spinons near a Kondo-breakdown quantum phase transition

Abstract

Motivated by the recent observation of spatially modulated screening in different paramagnetic heavy-fermion materials, we propose a theoretical mechanism for the emergence of such hybridization waves in frustrated Kondo lattices with no magnetic order. By applying a parton mean-field theory and a perturbative calculation to a minimal Kondo-Heisenberg lattice model, we demonstrate that a heavy Fermi liquid can naturally develop hybridization waves when it approaches a quantum phase transition where Kondo screening breaks down and the local magnetic moments form a Dirac spin liquid. We relate the strength of this mechanism to a kinematic condition on the electronic and spinon band structures and show that the spatial periodicity of the hybridization wave is set by a momentum $\vec{Q}$ connecting the nodes in the dispersion of the Dirac spinons to low-energy portions of the electronic band structure.