Abstract
We report measurements of in-plane electrical and thermal transport properties in the limit near the unconventional quantum critical point in the heavy-fermion metal . The high Kondo temperature K in this material allows us to probe transport extremely close to the critical point, at unusually small values of . Here we find that the Wiedemann-Franz law is obeyed at the lowest temperatures, implying that the Landau quasiparticles remain intact in the critical region. At finite temperatures we observe a non-Fermi-liquid -linear dependence of inelastic-scattering processes to energies lower than those previously accessed. These processes have a weaker temperature dependence than in comparable heavy fermion quantum critical systems, revealing a temperature scale of which signals a sudden change in the character of the inelastic scattering.
- Received 31 July 2014
- Revised 22 May 2015
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.92.041114
©2015 American Physical Society
Viewpoint
Rescuing the Quasiparticle
Published 20 July 2015
Experiments with heavy-fermion materials show that quasiparticles exist at the critical point of a quantum phase transition.
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