Temperature-Independent Fermi Surface in the Kondo Lattice YbRh_{2}Si_{2}

Abstract

Strongly correlated electron systems are one of the central topics in contemporary solid-state physics. Prominent examples for such systems are Kondo lattices, i.e., intermetallic materials in which below a critical temperature, the Kondo temperature T_{K}, the magnetic moments become quenched and the effective masses of the conduction electrons approach the mass of a proton. In Ce- and Yb-based systems, this so-called heavy-fermion behavior is caused by interactions between the strongly localized 4f and itinerant electrons. A major and very controversially discussed issue in this context is how the localized electronic degree of freedom gets involved in the Fermi surface (FS) upon increasing the interaction between both kinds of electrons or upon changing the temperature. In this paper, we show that the FS of a prototypic Kondo lattice, YbRh_{2}Si_{2}, does not change its size or shape in a wide temperature range extending from well below to far above the single-ion Kondo temperature T_{K}∼25 K of this system. This experimental observation, obtained by means of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, is in remarkable contrast to the widely believed evolution from a large FS, including the 4f degrees of freedom, to a small FS, without the 4f’s, upon increasing temperature. Our results explicitly demonstrate a need to further advance in theoretical approaches based on the periodic Anderson model in order to elucidate the temperature dependence of Fermi surfaces in Kondo lattices.