Temperature and field dependence of the thermodynamic and transport properties of Ce₃Bi₄Pt₃

Abstract

We have calculated the temperature and field dependence of various thermo-dynamic and transport properties for the insulating phase of the Anderson lattice Hamiltonian using a slave boson approach. The conduction band was assumed to be a tight binding cubic s-band. The transport properties were calculated assuming impurity scattering and using a relaxation time approximation. Many-body effects due to the on-site f electron Coulomb repulsion are shown to be crucial in describing the mixed valence nature and the different energy scales observed in Ce₃Bi₄Pt₃. The calculated electrical conductivity and thermopower agree with experiment but the Hall constant does not. We present predictions for the thermal conductivity and the thermoelectric figure of merit as a function of temperature. We predict that under a magnetic field H_c≃90T the system undergoes a transition from an insulator to a metal with a finite magnetic susceptibility and specific heat