Fermi Surface and Magnetism in the Kondo lattice: a Continuum Field Theory Approach

We consider the Fermi surface inside the antiferromagnetic ordered region of a Kondo lattice system in an arbitrary dimension higher than one. We establish the existence of AFS, an antiferromagnetic phase whose Fermi surface is “small,” in the sense that the local moments do not participate in the Fermi-surface formation. This is in contrast to the “large” Fermi surface that is typically assumed for heavy fermion metals. We extend our earlier work to the case that the Fermi surface of the conduction electrons intersects the antiferromagnetic Brillouin zone boundary. Our results provide a new perspective on local quantum criticality. In addition, our results imply that, for the AFS phase, it is important to keep track of the dynamical screening processes; we suggest that this effect is not captured in a recent variational Monte-Carlo study of the Kondo lattice.