During the Koln meeting (August 28-31, 1984), Irdia was chosen as the venue for the next International Conference on Valence Fluctuations. lhis was in recognition ard appreciation of the work done, both experimental ard theoretical, by the Irdian scientists in this area during the last decade. We decided to hold this Conference in the month of January, 1987 at Bangalore. lhe subject of Valence Fluctuations has kept itself alive ard active as it has provided many shocks ard suprises particularly among the Ce- ard U-based intermetallies. lhe richness of many interesting physical phenomena occurring in mixed valent materials, the flexibility of modifying their physical properties (by alloying, for example) ard the possibility of synthesizing a wide variety of new such materials seem to be the key factors in this regard. Barely six months before this Conference, an International Conference on Anomalous Rare Earths and Actinides (ICAREA) had been held at Grenoble (July, 1986) which also focussed on mixed valence ard heavy fermion phenomena. In spite of this, the response to this' Conference was very enthusiastic and encouraging. Many interesting ard important results were presented at this Conference which have been included in this volume.

This book comprehensively presents an unconventional quantum criticality caused by valence fluctuations, which offers theoretical understanding of unconventional Fermi-liquid properties in cerium- and ytterbium-based heavy fermion metals including CeCu2(Si,Ge)2 and CeRhIn5 under pressure, and quasicrystal β-YbAlB4 and Yb15Al34Au51. The book begins with an introduction to fundamental concepts for heavy fermion systems, valence fluctuation, and quantum phase transition, including self-consistent renormalization group theory. A subsequent chapter is devoted to a comprehensive description of the theory of the unconventional quantum criticality based on a valence transition, featuring explicit temperature dependence of various physical quantities, which allows for comparisons to relevant experiments. Lastly, it discusses how ubiquitous the valence fluctuation is, presenting candidate materials not only in heavy fermions, but also in strongly correlated electrons represented by high-Tc superconductor cuprates. Introductory chapters provide useful materials for learning fundamentals of heavy fermion systems and their theory. Further, experimental topics relevant to valence fluctuations are valuable resources for those who are new to the field to easily catch up with experimental background and facts.

This volume contains the proceedings of the Eighth Taniguchi Interna tional Symposium on the Theory of Condensed Matter, which was held at Shima Kanko Hotel in Shima, Japan, 10-13 April 1985. The topic of the Symposium was Valence Fluctuation and Heavy Fermion Systems, one of the most fundamental problems in present-day condensed matter physics. The dilute Kondo problem, which is one of the most typical and unique many-body problems in condensed matter physics, developed recently into the dense Kondo and the coherent Kondo lattice problems in the 4f elec tron systems. It is accepted now that a large degeneracy in f-electron systems makes this latter situation possible by enhancing the single-site Kondo state relative to the inter-site magnetic interactions. Now, anoma lous behavior in f-electron systems show rich variety and are called valence fluctuation phenomena as a whole. They have, however, a common fea ture. In the lowest temperature region, they show either heavy Fermion like character or a narrow gap formation at the Fermi energy. Discovery of superconductivity in the heavy Fermion systems is attracting more in terest. Anyway, the valence fluctuating states are thought to be of fun damental importance to bridge the gap between the localized magnetic states and the delocalized nownagnetic states.

Proceedings of a NATO ARW held in Florence, Italy, June 7--13, 1990

The book on Heavy-Fermion Systems is a part of the Book series "Handbook of Metal Physics", each volume of which is written to facilitate the research of Ph.D. students, faculty and other researchers in a specific area. The Heavy-Fermions (sometimes known as Heavy-Electrons) is a loosely defined collection of intermetallic compounds containing rare-earth (mostly Ce) or actinide (mostly U) elements. These unusual names were given due to the large effective mass (100-1,000 times greater than the mass of a free electron) below a critical temperature. They have a variety of ground states including superconducting, antiferromagnetic, paramagnetic or semiconducting. Some display unusual magnetic properties such as magnetic quantum critical point and metamagnetism. This book is essentially a summary as well as a critical review of the theoretical and experimental work done on Heavy Fermions. · Extensive research references. · Comprehensive review of a very rapidly growing number of theories. · Summary of all important experiments. · Comparison with other highly correlated systems such as High-Tc Superconductors. · Possible Technological applications.

This is the second in a series of miniworkshops and Adriatico conferences devoted to the exciting field of strongly correlated electron systems including quantum Hall effect, metal insulator transition, heavy fermions and high Tc superconductivity. In spite of enormous efforts made by physicists worldwide to solve these difficult problems, many important issues are still widely open and this topic remains the most active field in condensed matter physics. The review talks and reports on original research given by the experts in the field represent a state-of-the-art summary of this fast-moving field.