We study an exchange interaction in which conduction electrons with pseudospin ${\mathrm{S}}_{\mathrm{c}}$=3/2 interact with the impurity spin ${\mathrm{S}}_{\mathrm{I}}$=1/2. Due to the overscreening of the impurity spin by higher conduction electron spin, a nontrivial intermediate-coupling-strength fixed point is realized. Using the numerical renormalization group (NRG), we show that the low-energy spectra are described by a non-Fermi-liquid excitation spectrum. A conformal field theory analysis is compared with NRG results and excellent agreement is obtained. Using the double-fusion rule to generate the operator spectrum with the conformal theory, we find that the specific heat coefficient and magnetic susceptibility will diverge as ${\mathrm{T}}^{\mathrm{-}2\mathrm{/}3}$, that the scaling dimension of an applied magnetic field is 5/6, and that exchange anisotropy is always relevant. We discuss the possible relevance of our work to two-level-system Kondo materials and dilute cerium alloys, and we point out a paradox in understanding the Bethe-ansatz solutions to the multichannel Kondo model.

• Received 18 June 1996

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.55.12460