Scaling behavior of heavy fermion metals

Strongly correlated Fermi systems are fundamental systems in physics that are best studied experimentally, which until very recently have lacked theoretical explanations. This review discusses the construction of a theory and the analysis of phenomena occurring in strongly correlated Fermi systems such as heavy-fermion (HF) metals and two-dimensional (2D) Fermi systems. It is shown that the basic properties and the scaling behavior of HF metals can be described within the framework of a fermion condensation quantum phase transition (FCQPT) and an extended quasiparticle paradigm that allow us to explain the non-Fermi liquid behavior observed in strongly correlated Fermi systems. In contrast to the Landau paradigm stating that the quasiparticle effective mass is a constant, the effective mass of new quasiparticles strongly depends on temperature, magnetic field, pressure, and other parameters. Having analyzed the collected facts on strongly correlated Fermi systems with quite a different microscopic nature, we find these to exhibit the same non-Fermi liquid behavior at FCQPT. We show both analytically and using arguments based entirely on the experimental grounds that the data collected on very different strongly correlated Fermi systems have a universal scaling behavior, and materials with strongly correlated fermions can unexpectedly be uniform in their diversity. Our analysis of strongly correlated systems such as HF metals and 2D Fermi systems is in the context of salient experimental results. Our calculations of the non-Fermi liquid behavior, the scales and thermodynamic, relaxation and transport properties are in good agreement with experimental facts. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.