Multiorbital periodic Anderson model for CeRh2As2

Abstract: CeRh2As2 is a heavy-fermion superconductor that exhibits distinct low- and high-field superconducting phases, widely interpreted as reflecting a field-induced change in the parity of the order parameter. However, the superconductivity develops in close proximity to magnetic order whose microscopic origin and nature remain unclear. Moreover, the low-lying crystal-electric-field-split doublets of the Ce 4f electrons appear to realize an unusual "quasi-quartet" structure. This has motivated proposals that quadrupolar degrees of freedom play an important role in the low-temperature physics. Here we develop a microscopic heavy-fermion description of CeRh2As2 that incorporates both the quasi-quartet structure and the nonsymmorphic symmetry. Within a multiorbital periodic Anderson model, we include the lowest-lying $Γ_7$ and $Γ_6$ doublets of the Ce 4f electrons, and allow for nonlocal hybridization with the conduction d electrons. Single occupancy of the 4f states is enforced within the rotationally invariant slave-boson formalism. Adopting a mean-field treatment, we first show that the effective low-energy Hamiltonian is accurately captured by a single-orbital tight-binding model, justifying the minimal descriptions widely employed in the literature. Allowing for a magnetic ground state, we find that our model displays metallic $\mathbf{Q}=(π,π)$ antiferromagnetic order over a wide parameter regime. Ferromagnetic solutions also occur, but in a smaller region of parameter space and with greater sensitivity to carrier concentration and the form of the f-d hybridization. Quadrupolar moments appear only within magnetically ordered phases and are generally small, becoming substantial only when the $Γ_7$ and $Γ_6$ doublets are nearly degenerate. Our results provide a microscopic basis for understanding the itinerant heavy-fermion physics and ordered phases of CeRh2As2.