Heavy-Fermion Valence-Bond Liquids in Ultracold Atoms: Cooperation of the Kondo Effect and Geometric Frustration

We analyze a microscopic mechanism behind the coexistence of a heavy Fermi liquid and geometric frustration in Kondo lattices. We consider a geometrically frustrated periodic Anderson model and demonstrate how orbital fluctuations lead to a Kondo-screened phase in the limit of extreme strong frustration when only local singlet states participate in the low-energy physics. We also propose a setup to realize and study this exotic state with S U (3 ) -symmetric alkaline-earth cold atoms.