Quantum critical point in the spin glass-antiferromagnetism competition in Kondo-lattice systems

A theory is proposed to describe the competition among antiferromagnetism (AF), spin glass (SG) and Kondo effect. The model describes two Kondo sublattices with an intrasite Kondo interaction strength JK and an interlattice quantum Ising interaction in the presence of a transverse field Γ. The interlattice coupling is a random Gaussian distributed variable (with average −2J0/N and variance 32J /N) while the Γ field is introduced as a quantum mechanism to produce spin flipping. The path integral formalism is used to study this fermionic problem where the spin operators are represented by bilinear combinations of Grassmann fields. The disorder is treated within the framework of the replica trick. The free energy and the order parameters of the problem are obtained by using the static ansatz and by choosing both J0/J and Γ/J ≈ (Jk/J) 2 to allow, as previously, a better comparison with the experimental findings. The results indicate the presence of a SG solution at low JK/J and for temperature T < Tf (Tf is the freezing temperature). When JK/J is increased, a mixed phase AF+SG appears, then an AF solution and finally a Kondo state is obtained for high values of JK/J . Moreover, the behaviors of the freezing and Neel temperatures are also affected by the relationship between JK and the transverse field Γ. The first one presents a slight decrease while the second one decreases towards a Quantum Critical Point (QCP). The obtained phase diagram has the same sequence as the experimental one for Ce2Au1−xCoxSi3, if JK is assumed to increase with x, and in addition, it also shows a qualitative agreement concerning the behavior of the freezing and the Neel temperatures.