Arrested Kondo effect and hidden order in URu2Si2

Complex electronic matter shows subtle forms of self-organization, which are almost invisible to the available experimental tools. One prominent example is provided by the heavy-fermion material URu2Si2. At high temperature, the 5f electrons of uranium carry a very large entropy. This entropy is released at 17.5 K by means of a second-order phase transition(1) to a state that remains shrouded in mystery, termed a 'hidden order' state(2). Here, we develop a first-principles theoretical method to analyse the electronic spectrum of correlated materials as a function of the position inside the unit cell of the crystal and use it to identify the low-energy excitations of URu2Si2. We identify the order parameter of the hidden-order state and show that it is intimately connected to magnetism. Below 70 K, the 5f electrons undergo a multichannel Kondo effect, which is 'arrested' at low temperature by the crystal-field splitting. At lower temperatures, two broken-symmetry states emerge, characterized by a complex order parameter. A real describes the hidden-order phase and an imaginary corresponds to the large-moment antiferromagnetic phase. Together, they provide a unified picture of the two broken-symmetry phases in this material.