Physical Review B 81, 035121 (2010)

SCI

Probing quantum criticality with scanning tunneling spectroscopy

Minh-Tien Tran and Ki-Seok Kim

We investigate the role of quantum coherence in tunneling conductance, where quantum criticality turns out to suppress Fano resonance. Based on the nonequilibrium noncrossing approximation, we show that the linear tunneling conductance exhibits weak Fano line shape with sharp cusp at zero energy in the multichannel Kondo effect resulting from incoherence associated with quantum criticality of impurity dynamics. In particular, shift of the peak position in the Fano resonance is predicted not to occur for the multichannel Kondo effect distinguished from the Fermi-liquid theory in the single-channel Kondo effect.