Non-magnetic-doublet ground state in ; Enhancement of the specific-heat coefficient at low temperatures

✍ Scribed by Tsuyoshi Ikeno; Yosikazu Isikawa; Tomohiko Kuwai; Akihiro Mitsuda; Toshio Mizushima

• Book ID: 104079602
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 193 KB
• Volume: 378-380
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0921-4526
• DOI: 10.1016/j.physb.2006.01.190

✦ Synopsis

Specific heat, C, thermoelectric power, S, and magnetic susceptibility, w, of a cubic Heusler compound PrInCu 2 have been carefully examined. The C=T shows an enhancement with decreasing T and reaches 1:1 J=mol K 2 at 0.5 K, while the S=T does not show any enhancement at temperatures below 1 K. These observations suggest that the conduction electrons at E F do not correlate with the 4f electrons of Pr atoms and that the enhancement of C=T is not due to the Kondo effect. To explain the enhancement of the C=T at low temperatures, a model that the non-magnetic doublet of PrInCu 2 is lifted by quadrupole fluctuations was proposed. From the analysis of overall features of CðTÞ and wðTÞ, the energy scheme of 4f electrons was derived.