No Arabic abstract
Systems with embedded magnetic ions that exhibit a competition between magnetic order and disorder down to absolute zero can display unusual low temperature behaviors of the resistivity, susceptibility, and specific heat. Moreover, the dynamic response of such a system can display hyperscaling behavior in which the relaxation back to equilibrium when an amount of energy E is given to the system at temperature T only depends on the ratio E/T. Ce(Fe$_{0.755}$Ru$_{0.245}$)$_2$Ge$_2$ is a system that displays these behaviors. We show that these complex behaviors are rooted in a fragmentation of the magnetic lattice upon cooling caused by a distribution of local Kondo screening temperatures, and that the hyperscaling behavior can be attributed to the flipping of the total magnetic moment of magnetic clusters that spontaneously form and order upon cooling. We present our arguments based on the review of two-decades worth of neutron scattering and transport data on this system, augmented with new polarized neutron scattering experiments.
We have performed magnetic susceptibility, specific heat, resistivity, and inelastic neutron scattering measurements on a single crystal of the heavy Fermion compound Ce(Ni$_{0.935}$Pd$_{0.065}$)$_2$Ge$_2$, which is believed to be close to a quantum critical point (QCP) at T = 0. At lowest temperature(1.8-3.5 K), the magnetic susceptibility behaves as $chi(T)-chi (0)$ $propto$ $T^{-1/6}$ with $chi (0) = 0.032 times 10^{-6}$ m$^3$/mole (0.0025 emu/mole). For $T<$ 1 K, the specific heat can be fit to the formula $Delta C/T = gamma_0 - T^{1/2}$ with $gamma_0$ of order 700 mJ/mole-K$^2$. The resistivity behaves as $rho = rho_0 + AT^{3/2}$ for temperatures below 2 K. This low temperature behavior for $gamma (T)$ and $rho (T)$ is in accord with the SCR theory of Moriya and Takimotocite{Moriya}. The inelastic neutron scattering spectra show a broad peak near 1.5 meV that appears to be independent of $Q$; we interpret this as Kondo scattering with $T_K =$ 17 K. In addition, the scattering is enhanced near $Q$=(1/2, 1/2, 0) with maximum scattering at $Delta E$ = 0.45 meV; we interpret this as scattering from antiferromagnetic fluctuations near the antiferromagnetic QCP.
Electric resistivity, specific heat, magnetic susceptibility, and inelastic neutron scattering experiments were performed on a single crystal of the heavy fermion compound Ce(Ni$_{0.935}$Pd$_{0.065}$)$_2$Ge$_2$ in order to study the spin fluctuations near an antiferromagnetic (AF) quantum critical point (QCP). The resistivity and the specific heat coefficient for $T leq$ 1 K exhibit the power law behavior expected for a 3D itinerant AF QCP ($rho(T) sim T^{3/2}$ and $gamma(T) sim gamma_0 - b T^{1/2}$). However, for 2 $leq T leq$ 10 K, the susceptibility and specific heat vary as $log T$ and the resistivity varies linearly with temperature. Furthermore, despite the fact that the resistivity and specific heat exhibit the non-Fermi liquid behavior expected at a QCP, the correlation length, correlation time, and staggered susceptibility of the spin fluctuations remain finite at low temperature. We suggest that these deviations from the divergent behavior expected for a QCP may result from alloy disorder.
Polycrystalline samples of Ce(Cu$_{1-x}$Co$_x$)$_2$Ge$_2$ were investigated by means of electrical resistivity $rho$($T$), magnetic susceptibility $chi$($T$), specific heat $C$$_p$($T$) and thermo electric power $S$($T$) measurements. The long-range antiferromagnetic (AFM) order, which set in at $T$$_N$ = 4.1 K in CeCu$_2$Ge$_2$, is suppressed by non-iso-electronic cobalt (Co) doping at a critical value of the concentration $x$$_c$ = 0.6, accompanied by non-Fermi liquid (NFL) behavior inferred from the power law dependence of heat capacity and susceptibility i.e. $C$($T$)/$T$ and $chi$($T$) $propto$ $T$$^{-1+lambda}$ down to 0.4 K, along with a clear deviation from $T$$^2$ behavior of the electrical resistivity. However, we have not seen any superconducting phase in the quantum critical regime down to 0.4 K.
We present an extensive study of the ferromagnetic heavy fermion compound U$_4$Ru$_7$Ge$_6$. Measurements of electrical resistivity, specific heat and magnetic properties show that U$_4$Ru$_7$Ge$_6$ orders ferromagnetically at ambient pressure with a Curie temperature $T_{C} = 6.8 pm 0.3$ K. The low temperature magnetic behavior of this soft ferromagnet is dominated by the excitation of gapless spin-wave modes. Our results on the transport properties of U$_4$Ru$_7$Ge$_6$ under pressures up to $2.49$ GPa suggest that U$_4$Ru$_7$Ge$_6$ has a putative ferromagnetic quantum critical point (QCP) at $P_c approx 1.7 pm 0.02$ GPa. In the ordered phase, ferromagnetic magnons scatter the conduction electrons and give rise to a well defined power law temperature dependence in the resistivity. The coefficient of this term is related to the spin-wave stiffness and measurements of the very low temperature resistivity allow to accompany the behavior of this quantity as the the ferromagnetic QCP is approached. We find that the spin-wave stiffness decreases with increasing pressure implying that the transition to the non-magnetic Fermi liquid state is driven by the softening of the magnons. The observed quantum critical behavior of the magnetic stiffness is consistent with the influence of disorder in our system. At quantum criticality ($P = P_c approx 1.7 pm 0.02$ GPa), the resistivity shows the behavior expected for an itinerant metallic system near a ferromagnetic QCP.
We investigated Sr$_3$Ru$_2$O$_7$, a quantum critical metal that shows a metamagnetic quantum phase transition and electronic nematicity, through density functional calculations. These predict a ferromagnetic ground state in contrast to the experimentally observed paramagnetism, raising the question of competing magnetic states and associated fluctuations that may suppress magnetic order. We did a search to identify such low energy antiferromagnetically ordered metastable states. We find that the lowest energy antiferromagnetic state has a striped order. This corresponds to the E-type order that has been shown to be induced by Mn alloying. We also note significant transport anisotropy in this E-type ordered state. These results are discussed in relation to experimental observations.