Transition between SU(4) and SU(2) Kondo effect

Abstract

Motivated by experiments in nanoscopic systems, we study a generalized Anderson, which consist of two spin degenerate doublets hybridized to a singlet by the promotion of an electron to two conduction bands, as a function of the energy separation δ between both doublets. For δ=0 or very large, the model is equivalent to a one-level SU(N) Anderson model, with N=4 and 2 respectively. We study the evolution of the spectral density for both doublets (ρ1σ(ω) and ρ2σ(ω)) and their width in the Kondo limit as δ is varied, using the non-crossing approximation (NCA). As δ increases, the peak at the Fermi energy in the spectral density (Kondo peak) splits and the density of the doublet of higher energy ρ2σ(ω) shifts above the Ferrmi energy. The Kondo temperature TK (determined by the half-width at half maximum of the Kondo peak in density of the doublet of lower energy ρ1σ(ω)) decreases dramatically. The variation of TK with δ is reproduced by a simple variational calculation.