Low temperature properties of the Kondo insulator FeSi

Abstract

In this paper we study the low temperature (T) properties of the Kondo insulator FeSi within the X-boson approach. We show that the ground state of the FeSi is metallic and highly correlated with a large effective mass; the low temperature contributions to the specific heat and the resistivity are of the Fermi-liquid type. The low temperature properties are governed by a reentrant transition into a metallic state, that occurs when the chemical potential crosses the gap and enters the conduction band, generating a metallic ground state. The movement of the chemical potential is due to the strong correlations present in the system. We consider the low temperature regime of the Kondo insulator FeSi, where the hybridization gap is completely open. In this situation we identify the two characteristic temperatures: the coherence temperature T0 and the Kondo temperature TKL. In the range T T > T0, we identify a regime characterized by an activation energy. Within the X-boson approach we study those low temperature regimes although we do not try to adjust parameters to recover the experimental energy scales.