SrTm$_2$O$_4$ has been investigated using heat capacity, magnetic susceptibility, magnetization in pulsed fields, and inelastic neutron scattering measurements. These results show that the system is highly anisotropic, has gapped low-energy dispersing magnetic excitations, and remains in a paramagnetic state down to 2K. Two theoretical crystal field models were used to describe the single-ion properties of SrTm$_2$O$_4$without any optimization procedures; a standard point-charge model and a Density Functional Theory (DFT) based model that uses Wannier functions. The DFT model was found to better describe the system at low energy by predicting a singlet ground state for one Tm site and a doublet for the second Tm site and anisotropy of second site Tm dominating the anisotropy of the system. Additionally, muon spin rotation/relaxation ($mu^+$psr) spectra reveal oscillations, typically a sign of long-range magnetic order. We attribute these observations to lattice distortion induced by muon implantation, causing renormalization of the gap size.
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