Recent Developments at the Interface of Quantum Matter and Plutonium Science

摘要

It has long been recognized that the partial localizationof 5f electrons in elemental plutonium, which gives rise toe.g., Pu’s complex metallurgy, is related scientifically tovalence instabilities and fluctuations that are at the originsof heavy fermion behavior in a range of f-electronintermetallics. In the 1980s at Los Alamos, Zachary Fisk,Jim Smith, and Sig Hecker performed foundational workthat launched decades of subsequent effort associated withheavy fermion materials and the observation ofunconventional superconductivity.