1302.1696 (F. Hardy et al.)

Evidence of Strong Correlations and Coherence-Incoherence Crossover in
the Iron Pnictide Superconductor KFe2As2    [PDF]

F. Hardy, A. E. Boehmer, D. Aoki, P. Burger, T. Wolf, P. Schweiss, R. Heid, P. Adelmann, Y. X. Yao, G. Kotliar, J. Schmalian, C. Meingast

Using resistivity, heat-capacity, thermal-expansion, and susceptibility measurements we study the normal-state behavior of KFe2As2. We find that both the Sommerfeld coefficient gamma = 103 mJ mol-1 K-2 and the Pauli susceptibility chi = 4x10-4 are strongly enhanced, which confirm the existence of heavy quasiparticles inferred from previous de Haas-van Alphen and ARPES experiments. We discuss this large enhancement using a Gutzwiller slave-boson mean-field calculation, which reveals the proximity of KFe2As2 to an orbital-selective Mott transition. The temperature dependence of the magnetic susceptibility and the thermal expansion provide strong experimental evidence for the existence of a coherence-incoherence crossover, similar to what is found in heavy fermion and ruthenate compounds, due to Hund's coupling between orbitals.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.1696