Phase boundaries of power-law Anderson and Kondo models: A poor man's scaling study

Abstract

We use the poor man's scaling approach to study the phase boundaries of a pair of quantum impurity models featuring a power-law density of states $\rho(\omega)\propto|\omega|^r$ that gives rise to quantum phase transitions between local-moment and Kondo-screened phases. For the Anderson model with a pseudogap (i.e., $r>0$), we find the phase boundary for (a) $0<r<1/2$, a range over which the model exhibits interacting quantum critical points both at and away from particle-hole symmetry, and (b) $r>1$, where the phases are separated by first-order quantum phase transitions. For the particle-hole-symmetric Kondo model with easy-axis or easy-plane anisotropy of the spin exchange, the phase boundary and scaling trajectories are obtained for both $r>0$ and $r<0$ (the later case describing a density of states that diverges at the Fermi energy). Comparison with nonperturbative results from the numerical renormalization group shows that poor man's scaling correctly describes the shape of phase boundaries expressed as functional relations between model parameters.