No Arabic abstract
We report the thermodynamic, magnetic, and electronic transport properties of the new ternary intermetallic system (Ce,La)3Pt4In13. Ce3Pt4In13 orders antiferromagnetically at 0.95 K while the non-magnetic compound La3Pt4In13 is a conventional 3.3 K superconductor. Kondo lattice effects appear to limit the entropy associated with the Neel transition to (1/4)Rln2 as an electronic contribution to the specific heat of gamma = 1 J/mole-Ce K2 is observed at TN; roughly 35% of this gamma survives the ordering transition. Hall effect, thermoelectric power, and ambient-pressure resistivity measurements confirm this interpretation. These results suggest that RKKY and Kondo interactions are closely balanced in this compound (TN = TK). Contrary to expectations based on the Doniach Kondo necklace model, applied hydrostatic pressure modestly enhances the magnetic ordering temperature with dTN/dP = +23 mK/kbar. As such Ce3Pt4In13 provides a counterexample to Kondo systems with similar Kondo and RKKY energy scales wherein applied pressure enhances TK at the expense of the ordered magnetic state.
We report that nonmagnetic heavy-fermion (HF) iron oxypnictide CeFePO with two-dimensional XY-type anisotropy shows a metamagnetic behavior at the metamagnetic field H_M simeq 4 T perpendicular to the c-axis and that a critical behavior is observed around H_M. Although the magnetic character is entirely different from that in other Ce-based HF metamagnets, H_M in these metamagnets is linearly proportional to the inverse of the effective mass, or to the temperature where the susceptibility shows a peak. This finding suggests that H_M is a magnetic field breaking the local Kondo singlet, and the critical behavior around H_M is driven by the Kondo breakdown accompanied by the Fermi-surface instability.
Physical properties of polycrystalline CeCrGe$_{3}$ and LaCrGe$_{3}$ have been investigated by x-ray absorption spectroscopy, magnetic susceptibility $chi(T)$, isothermal magnetization M(H), electrical resistivity $rho(T)$, specific heat C($T$) and thermoelectric power S($T$) measurements. These compounds are found to crystallize in the hexagonal perovskite structure (space group textit{P6$_{3}$/mmc}), as previously reported. The $rho(T)$, $chi(T)$ and C($T$) data confirm the bulk ferromagnetic ordering of itinerant Cr moments in LaCrGe$_{3}$ and CeCrGe$_{3}$ with $T_{C}$ = 90 K and 70 K respectively. In addition a weak anomaly is also observed near 3 K in the C($T$) data of CeCrGe$_{3}$. The T dependences of $rho$ and finite values of Sommerfeld coefficient $gamma$ obtained from the specific heat measurements confirm that both the compounds are of metallic character. Further, the $T$ dependence of $rho$ of CeCrGe$_{3}$ reflects a Kondo lattice behavior. An enhanced $gamma$ of 130 mJ/mol,K$^{2}$ together with the Kondo lattice behavior inferred from the $rho(T)$ establish CeCrGe$_{3}$ as a moderate heavy fermion compound with a quasi-particle mass renormalization factor of $sim$ 45.
Dimensionality plays an essential role in determining the anomalous non-Fermi liquid properties in heavy fermion systems. So far most heavy fermion compounds are quasi-two-dimensional or three-dimensional. Here we report the synthesis and systematic investigations of the single crystals of the quasi-one-dimensional Kondo lattice CeCo$_2$Ga$_8$. Resistivity measurements at ambient pressure reveal the onset of coherence at $T^*approx 20,$K and non-Fermi liquid behavior with linear temperature dependence over a decade in temperature from 2 K to 0.1 K. The specific heat increases logarithmically with lowering temperature between 10 K and 2 K and reaches 800 mJ/mol K$^2$ at 1 K, suggesting that CeCo$_2$Ga$_8$ is a heavy fermion compound in the close vicinity of a quantum critical point. Resistivity measurements under pressure further confirm the non-Fermi liquid behavior in a large temperature-pressure range. The magnetic susceptibility is found to follow the typical behavior for a one-dimensional (1D) spin chain from 300 K down to $T^*$, and first-principles calculations predict flat Fermi surfaces for the itinerant $f$-electron bands. These suggest that CeCo$_2$Ga$_8$ is a rare example of the quasi-1D Kondo lattice, but its non-Fermi liquid behaviors resemble those of the quasi-two-dimensional YbRh$_2$Si$_2$ family. The study of the quasi-one-dimensional CeCo$_2$Ga$_8$ family may therefore help us to understand the role of dimensionality on heavy fermion physics and quantum criticality.
Insulating states can be topologically nontrivial, a well-established notion that is exemplified by the quantum Hall effect and topological insulators. By contrast, topological metals have not been experimentally evidenced until recently. In systems with strong correlations, they have yet to be identified. Heavy fermion semimetals are a prototype of strongly correlated systems and, given their strong spin-orbit coupling, present a natural setting to make progress. Here we advance a Weyl-Kondo semimetal phase in a periodic Anderson model on a noncentrosymmetric lattice. The quasiparticles near the Weyl nodes develop out of the Kondo effect, as do the surface states that feature Fermi arcs. We determine the key signatures of this phase, which are realized in the heavy fermion semimetal Ce$_3$Bi$_4$Pd$_3$. Our findings provide the much-needed theoretical foundation for the experimental search of topological metals with strong correlations, and open up a new avenue for systematic studies of such quantum phases that naturally entangle multiple degrees of freedom.
We report measurements of inelastic neutron scattering, magnetic susceptibility, magnetization, and the magnetic field dependence of the specific heat for the heavy Fermion compounds Ce$_3$In and Ce$_3$Sn. The neutron scattering results show that the excited crystal field levels have energies $E_1$ = 13.2 meV, $E_2$ = 44.8 meV for Ce$_3$In and $E_1$ = 18.5 meV, $E_2$ = 36.1 meV for Ce$_3$Sn. The Kondo temperature deduced from the quasielastic linewidth is 17 K for Ce$_3$In and 40 K for Ce$_3$Sn. The low temperature behavior of the specific heat, magnetization, and susceptibility can not be well-described by J=1/2 Kondo physics alone, but require calculations that include contributions from the Kondo effect, broadened crystal fields, and ferromagnetic correlations, all of which are known to be important in these compounds. We find that in Ce$_3$In the ferromagnetic fluctuation makes a 10-15 % contribution to the ground state doublet entropy and magnetization. The large specific heat coefficient $gamma$ in this heavy fermion system thus arises more from the ferromagnetic correlations than from the Kondo behavior.