Magnetic field induced quantum criticality at a Lifshitz transition with interactions

Abstract

Motivated by a discontinuous transition observed in CeIn3 in high magnetic fields, the effects of the Landau quantization and interactions on a Lifshitz transition are studied. The Landau quantization leads to a quasi-one-dimensional behavior for the direction parallel to the field. The repulsive Coulomb interactions give rise to a gas of strongly coupled particles. The density correlation function is calculated for a special long-ranged interaction potential. It is concluded that, in the ground state, an electron (or hole) pocket is emptied in a discontinuous fashion as a function of the chemical potential (or magnetic field). This discontinuity is gradually smeared by the temperature, in agreement with experiments for CeIn3. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.