Electronic polaron effects in heavy-electron materials

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
It is shown that intra-atomic Coulomb correlation causes the f electrons in heavy-fermion materials to propagate like polarons in insulators and semiconductors. The effective mass of the quasiparticles is enhanced, and at finite temperatures the quasiparticles are damped so that the polaron effect may be a contributing factor to the crossover from coherent behavior at low temperatures to single-site behavior at high temperatures.