638 Ch.

11 Mixed Valence and Heavy Fermions

the model (11.27), or one of its numerous generalizations. Hewson's

monography [164] covers much of the subject.
Like in the case of other physical quantities, the diverging character
of (11.44) signals a merely technical difficulty. The exact Rimp(T)satu-
rates at a large but finite value Ro as T + 0, and the low-T behaviour
is described by

(11.45)

Let us note that the same TK figures in the high-temperature and low-
temperature relationships. The Kondo impurity problem has a single
energy scale.
Naturally, (11.41), (11.42), and (11.43) are valid only if Cjmp is small
enough so that impurity-impurity interactions can be neglected. Well,
how small should cjmpbe? This is an unexpectedly difficult question,
to which we can offer no conclusive answer.
Our basic idea is that the single-impurity trial state (11.28) describes
a Kondo compensation cloud of diameter <K, which contains an f-c
singlet. An electron looking on from farther than t~ sees a big singlet
object which acts like a potential scatterer. We can use an uncertainty
principle argument to derive <K. Assuming that we envisage I@o) as a
wave packet with a momentum distribution width Ap = l A E l / v ~ ,

(11.46)

where a is the lattice parameter. The Kondo cloud is exponentially

large. It may seem reasonable to consider an alloy dilute if the Kondo
clouds of two impurities separated by an average distance c z r a do
not overlap. Taking TK = 10K (which would not be unusual), and
W = 10000K, we get <K = 1000a. According to the previous criterion,
an alloy would be dilute if Cjmp < lo-'. Since such levels of sample
purity cannot be achieved, we might fear that the results (11.37)-(11.45)
have no practical application. Fortunately, this is far from being the
case. The Kondo effect is robust, observable in a wide range of systems,
including rather concentrated alloys with strongly overlapping Kondo
clouds. Indeed, in Ce,Lal-,-type alloy systems, there seems to exist