Intermediate valence metals

The ground state of rare earth intermediate valence (IV) metals is that of a heavy mass Fermi liquid. The transport, optical conductivity, dHvA signals, and Q-resolved neutron spectra reflect the existence of a Fermi surface with strongly renormalized masses and a hybridization gap. On the other hand, properties such as the susceptibility, specific heat, valence and spin dynamics that are dominated by the spin fluctuations, which are highly localized, can be understood qualitatively (and sometimes quantitatively) as those of a collection of non-interacting Anderson/Kondo impurities. Anomalies exist in some compounds both in the low temperature behavior and in the rate of crossover from Fermi liquid to local moment behavior which may reflect non-universal behavior of the Anderson lattice.