PAMS Seminar: Dr. Wouter Montfrooij

Dr. Wouter Montfrooij, associate professor, University of Missouri will present on:

"Does Spontaneous Fragmentation of a Magnetic Lattice Lead to Heavy Fermion Behavior?"

Abstract: We discuss how macroscopically uniform systems housing magnetic ions, the so-called Kondo lattices, can spontaneously fragment into lattices populated with magnetic clusters upon cooling. We show evidence for this behavior in a chemically substituted compound and demonstrate how these magnetic clusters dominate the low temperature response of the system, both in transport measurements as well as to microscopic probes such as neutron scattering.

We argue that this spontaneous fragmentation should not be limited to chemically substituted systems but should be prevalent in stoichiometric systems as well, especially in systems that are close to a quantum critical point. As such, this fragmentation could well provide the explanation behind the puzzling critical behavior observed in quantum critical systems.

Free