Exotic metallic phase in a heterotic Kondo lattice: violation of Luttinger's theorem and absence of Kondo gap

Abstract

Fermi surface transformation accompanied by quantum phase transition is widely observed in correlated electron systems including heavy fermion materials and van der Waals quantum heterostructures. The unified Anderson lattice description for this phenomenon suggests that their interacting ground states in the case of electron half filling always destabilize the metallic phase in the strong Kondo-coupling regime. We examine this issue within the paramagnetic phase of a Kondo lattice system with a heterotic layered structure. In the weak Kondo-coupling regime, the system exhibits a fractional Dirac liquid involving the massless or massive Dirac fermions and a charge neutral spinon Fermi surface. In the strong Kondo-coupling regime, the spinons hybridize with the Dirac fermions resulting in an intermediate nearly-flat hybridizing band together with the conduction and valence heavy fermion bands, yielding a large electric Fermi surface. Absence of the Kondo gap between these bands is observed depending on the stacking configurations of the layered structure. In particular, the system remains metallic even at the exact half filling in this regime and Luttinger's theorem is violated across the critical point. Implications of these results on the van der Waals quantum heterostructures are briefly discussed.