No Arabic abstract
We present a comprehensive ultrasound study of the prototypical heavy-fermion material CeRhIn$_5$, examining the origin of the enigmatic 30 T transition. For a field applied at 2$^circ$ from the $c$ axis, we observed two sharp anomalies in the sound velocity, at $B_m approx$ 20 T and $B^* approx$ 30 T, in all the symmetry-breaking ultrasound modes at low temperatures. The lower-field anomaly corresponds to the well-known first-order metamagnetic incommensurate-to-commensurate transition. The higher-field anomaly takes place at 30 T, where an electronic-nematic transition was previously suggested to occur. Both anomalies, observed only within the antiferromagnetic state, are of similar shape, but the corresponding changes of the ultrasound velocity have opposite signs. Based on our experimental results, we suggest that a field-induced magnetic transition from a commensurate to another incommensurate antiferromagnetic state occurs at $B^*$. With further increasing the field angle from the $c$ axis, the anomaly at $B^*$ slowly shifts to higher fields, broadens, and becomes smaller in magnitude. Traced up to 30$^circ$ from the $c$ axis, it is no longer observed at 40$^circ$ below 36 T.
The Kondo-lattice compound CeRhIn$_5$ displays a field-induced Fermi surface reconstruction at $B^*approx30$ T, which occurs within the antiferromagnetic state, prior to the quantum critical point at $B_{c0}approx50$ T. Here, in order to investigate the nature of the Fermi surface change, we measured the magnetostriction, specific heat, and magnetic torque of CeRhIn$_5$ across a wide range of magnetic fields. Our observations uncover the field-induced itineracy of the $4f$ electrons, where above $B_{rm onset}approx17$ T there is a significant enhancement of the Sommerfeld coefficient, and spin-dependent effective cyclotron masses determined from quantum oscillations. Upon crossing $B_{rm onset}$, the temperature dependence of the specific heat also shows distinctly different behavior from that at low fields. Our results indicate that the Kondo coupling is remarkably robust upon increasing the magnetic field. This is ascribed to the delocalization of the $4f$ electrons at the Fermi surface reconstruction at $B^*$.
CeRhIn$_5$ is a prototypical antiferromagnetic heavy-fermion compound, whose behavior in a magnetic field is unique. A magnetic field applied in the basal plane of the tetragonal crystal structure induces two additional phase transitions. When the magnetic field is applied along, or close to, the $c$ axis, a new phase characterized by a pronounced in-plane electronic anisotropy emerges at $B^* approx$ 30 T, well below the critical field, $B_c simeq$ 50 T, to suppress the antiferromagnetic order. The exact origin of this new phase, originally suggested to be an electronic-nematic state, remains elusive. Here we report low-temperature specific-heat measurements in CeRhIn$_5$ in high static magnetic fields up to 36 T applied along both the $a$ and $c$ axes. For fields applied along the $a$ axis, we confirmed the previously suggested phase diagram, and extended it to higher fields. This allowed us to observe a triple point at $sim$ 30 T, where the first-order transition from an incommensurate to commensurate magnetic structure merges into the onset of the second-order antiferromagnetic transition. For fields applied along the $c$ axis, we observed a small but distinct anomaly at $B^*$, which we discuss in terms of a possible field-induced transition, probably weakly first-order. We further suggest that the transition corresponds to a change of magnetic structure. We revise magnetic phase diagrams of CeRhIn$_5$ for both principal orientations of the magnetic field based entirely on thermodynamic anomalies.
We discuss recent results on the heavy fermion superconductor CeRhIn$_5$ which presents ideal conditions to study the strong coupling between the suppression of antiferromagnetic order and the appearance of unconventional superconductivity. The appearance of superconductivity as function of pressure is strongly connected to the suppression of the magnetic order. Under magnetic field, the re-entrance of magnetic order inside the superconducting state shows that antiferromagnetism nucleates in the vortex cores. The suppression of antiferromagnetism in CeRhIn$_5$ by Sn doping is compared to that under hydrostatic pressure.
We have used high-resolution neutron spectroscopy experiments to determine the complete spin wave spectrum of the heavy fermion antiferromagnet CeRhIn$_5$. The spin wave dispersion can be quantitatively reproduced with a simple $J_1$-$J_2$ model that also naturally explains the magnetic spin-spiral ground state of CeRhIn$_5$ and yields a dominant in-plane nearest-neighbor magnetic exchange constant $J_0$ = 0.74 meV. Our results pave the way to a quantitative understanding of the rich low-temperature phase diagram of the prominent Ce$T$In$_5$ ($T$ = Co, Rh, Ir) class of heavy fermion materials.
We present core level non-resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (NIXS) data of the heavy fermion compounds CeCoIn$_5$ and CeRhIn$_5$ measured at the Ce $N_{4,5}$-edges. The higher than dipole transitions in NIXS allow determining the orientation of the $Gamma_7$ crystal-field ground-state orbital within the unit cell. The crystal-field parameters of the Ce$M$In$_5$ compounds and related substitution phase diagrams have been investigated in great detail in the past; however, whether the ground-state wavefunction is the $Gamma_7^+$ ($x^2,-,y^2$) or $Gamma_7^-$ ($xy$ orientation) remained undetermined. We show that the $Gamma_7^-$ doublet with lobes along the (110) direction forms the ground state in CeCoIn$_5$ and CeRhIn$_5$. For CeCoIn$_5$, however, we find also some contribution of the first excited state crystal-field state in the ground state due to the stronger hybridization of 4$f$ and conduction electrons, suggesting a smaller $alpha^2$ value than originally anticipated from x-ray absorption. A comparison is made to the results of existing density functional theory plus dynamical mean-field theory calculations.