No Arabic abstract
The magnetic structure and fluctuations of tetragonal GdRhIn5 were studied by resonant x-ray diffraction at the Gd LII and LIII edges, followed by a renormalization group analysis for this and other related Gd-based compounds, namely Gd2IrIn8 and GdIn3. These compounds are spin-only analogs of the isostructural Ce-based heavy-fermion superconductors. The ground state of GdRhIn5 shows a commensurate antiferromagnetic spin structure with propagation vector tau = (0,1/2, 1/2), corresponding to a parallel spin alignment along the a-direction and antiparallel alignment along b and c. A comparison between this magnetic structure and those of other members of the Rm(Co,Rh,Ir)n In3m+2n family (R =rare earth, n = 0, 1; m = 1, 2) indicates that, in general, tau is determined by a competition between first-(J1) and second-neighbor(J2) antiferromagnetic (AFM) interactions. While a large J1 /J2 ratio favors an antiparallel alignment along the three directions (the so-called G-AFM structure), a smaller ratio favors the magnetic structure of GdRhIn5 (C-AFM). In particular, it is inferred that the heavy-fermion superconductor CeRhIn5 is in a frontier between these two ground states, which may explain its non-collinear spiral magnetic structure. The critical behavior of GdRhIn5 close to the paramagnetic transition at TN = 39 K was also studied in detail. A typical second-order transition with the ordered magnetization critical parameter beta = 0.35 was experimentally found, and theoretically investigated by means of a renormalization group analysis.
X-ray diffraction with photon energies near the Ru L$_2$-absorption edge was used to detect resonant reflections characteristic of a G-type superstructure in RuSr$_2$GdCu$_2$O$_8$ single crystals. A polarization analysis confirms that these reflections are due to magnetic order of Ru moments, and the azimuthal-angle dependence of the scattering amplitude reveals that the moments lie along a low-symmetry axis with substantial components parallel and perpendicular to the RuO$_2$ layers. Complemented by susceptibility data and a symmetry analysis of the magnetic structure, these results reconcile many of the apparently contradictory findings reported in the literature.
Multiferroic TbMnO3 is investigated using x-ray diffraction in high magnetic fields. Measurements on first and second harmonic structural reflections due to modulations induced by the Mn and Tb magnetic order are presented as function of temperature and field oriented along the a and b-directions of the crystal. The relation to changes in ordering of the rare earth moments in applied field is discussed. Observations below T_N(Tb) without and with applied magnetic field point to a strong interaction of the rare earth order, the Mn moments and the lattice. Also, the incommensurate to commensurate transition of the wave vector at the critical fields is discussed with respect to the Tb and Mn magnetic order and a phase diagram on basis of these observations for magnetic fields H||a and H||b is presented. The observations point to a complicated and delicate magneto-elastic interaction as function of temperature and field.
We investigated the magnetic structure of the heavy fermion compound CePt$_2$In$_7$ below $T_N~=5.34(2)$ K using magnetic resonant X-ray diffraction at ambient pressure. The magnetic order is characterized by a commensurate propagation vector ${k}_{1/2}~=~left( frac{1}{2} , frac{1}{2}, frac{1}{2}right)$ with spins lying in the basal plane. Our measurements did not reveal the presence of an incommensurate order propagating along the high symmetry directions in reciprocal space but cannot exclude other incommensurate modulations or weak scattering intensities. The observed commensurate order can be described equivalently by either a single-${k}$ structure or by a multi-${k}$ structure. Furthermore we explain how a commensurate-only ordering may explain the broad distribution of internal fields observed in nuclear quadrupolar resonance experiments (Sakai et al. 2011, Phys. Rev. B 83 140408) that was previously attributed to an incommensurate order. We also report powder X-ray diffraction showing that the crystallographic structure of CePt$_2$In$_7$ changes monotonically with pressure up to $P~=~7.3$ GPa at room temperature. The determined bulk modulus $B_0~=~81.1(3)$ GPa is similar to the ones of the Ce-115 family. Broad diffraction peaks confirm the presence of pronounced strain in polycrystalline samples of CePt$_2$In$_7$. We discuss how strain effects can lead to different electronic and magnetic properties between polycrystalline and single crystal samples.
The phase diagram of the one-dimensional extended Hubbard model at half-filling is investigated by a weak coupling renormalization group method applicable beyond the usual continuum limit for the electron spectrum and coupling constants. We analyze the influence of irrelevant momentum dependent interactions on asymptotic properties of the correlation functions and the nature of dominant phases for the lattice model under study.
We extend the Hertz-Millis theory of quantum phase transitions in itinerant electron systems to phases with broken discrete symmetry. Using a set of coupled flow equations derived within the functional renormalization group framework, we compute the second order phase transition line T_c(delta), with delta a non-thermal control parameter, near a quantum critical point. We analyze the interplay and relative importance of quantum and classical fluctuations at different energy scales, and we compare the Ginzburg temperature T_G to the transition temperature T_c, the latter being associated with a non-Gaussian fixed-point.