Frustration and the Kondo Effect in Heavy Fermion Materials

The observation of a separation between the antiferromagnetic phase boundary and the small-large Fermi surface transition in recent experiments has led to the proposal that frustration is an important additional tuning parameter in the Kondo lattice model of heavy fermion materials. The introduction of a Kondo (K) and a frustration (Q) axis into the phase diagram permits us to discuss the physics of heavy fermion materials in a broader perspective. The current experimental situation is analyzed in the context of this combined “QK” phase diagram. We discuss various theoretical models for the frustrated Kondo lattice, using general arguments to characterize the nature of the f-electron localization transition that occurs between the spin liquid and heavy Fermi liquid ground-states. We concentrate in particular on the Shastry–Sutherland Kondo lattice model, for which we establish the qualitative phase diagram using strong coupling arguments and the large-N expansion. The paper closes with some brief remarks on promising future theoretical directions.