Arrested Kondo effect and hidden order in URu 2 Si 2

Abstract

Complex electronic matter shows subtle forms of self-organization, which are almost invisible to the available experimental tools. One prominent example is provided by the heavy-fermion material URu 2 Si 2 . At high temperature, the 5f electrons of uranium carry a very large entropy. This entropy is released at 17.5 K by means of a second-order phase transition to a state that remains shrouded in mystery, termed a hidden order state 2 . Here, we develop a first-principles theoretical method to analyse the electronic spectrum of correlated materials as a function of the position inside the unit cell of the crystal and use it to identify the low-energy excitations of Ru 2 Si 2 . We identify the order parameter of the hidden-order state and show that it is intimately connected to magnetism. Below 70 K, the 5f electrons undergo a multichannel Kondo effect, which is arrested at low temperature by the crystal-field splitting. At lower temperatures, two broken-symmetry states emerge, characterized by a complex order parameter Ψ. A real Ψ describes the hidden-order phase and an imaginary Ψ corresponds to the large-moment antiferromagnetic phase. Together, they provide a unified picture of the two roken-symmetry phases in this material. 2009 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rightsreserved.