4 research outputs found
Universal linear-temperature dependence of static magnetic susceptibility in iron-pnictides
A universal linear-temperature dependence of the uniform magnetic
susceptibility has been observed in the nonmagnetic normal state of
iron-pnictides. This non-Pauli and non-Curie-Weiss-like paramagnetic behavior
cannot be understood within a pure itinerant picture. We argue that it results
from the existence of a wide antiferromagnetic fluctuation window in which the
local spin-density-wave correlations exist but the global directional order has
not been established yet.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Rare earth magnetism in CeFeAsO: A single crystal study
Single crystals of CeFeAsO, large enough to study the anisotropy of the
magnetic properties, were grown by an optimized Sn-flux technique. The high
quality of our single crystals is apparent from the highest residual
resistivity ratio, RRR = 12, reported among undoped RFeAsO compounds (R=rare
earth) as well as sharp anomalies in resistivity, specific heat, C(T), and
thermal expansion at the different phase transitions. The magnetic
susceptibility chi(T) presents a large easy-plane anisotropy consistent with
the lowest crystal electric field doublet having a dominant Gamma_6 character.
Curie-Weiss like susceptibilities for magnetic field parallel and perpendicular
to the crystallographic c-axis do not reveal an influence of a staggered field
on the Ce site induced by magnetic ordering of the Fe. Furthermore, the
standard signatures for antiferromagnetic order of Ce at T_N = 3.7 K observed
in chi(T) and C(T) are incompatible with a Zeeman splitting Delta = 10 K of the
CEF ground state doublet at low temperature due to the Fe-magnetic order as
previously proposed. Our results can be reconciled with the earlier observation
by assuming a comparatively stronger effect of the Ce-Ce exchange leading to a
reduction of this Zeeman splitting below 15 K.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, added section on magn. susceptibilit
Electronic properties of LaOFFeAs in the normal state probed by NMR/NQR
We report 139La, 57Fe and 75As nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and nuclear
quadrupole resonance (NQR) measurements on powders of the new LaO1-xFxFeAs
superconductor for x = 0 and x = 0.1 at temperatures up to 480 K, and compare
our measured NQR spectra with local density approximation (LDA) calculations.
For all three nuclei in the x = 0.1 material, it is found that the local Knight
shift increases monotonically with an increase in temperature, and scales with
the macroscopic susceptibility, suggesting a single magnetic degree of freedom.
Surprisingly, the spin lattice relaxation rates for all nuclei also scale with
one another, despite the fact that the form factors for each site sample
different regions of q-space. This result suggests a lack of any q-space
structure in the dynamical spin susceptibility that might be expected in the
presence of antiferromagnetic correlations. Rather, our results are more
compatible with simple quasi-particle scattering. Furthermore, we find that the
increase in the electric field gradient at the As cannot be accounted for by
LDA calculations, suggesting that structural changes, in particular the
position of the As in the unit cell, dominate the NQR response.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figure
Near-degeneracy of several pairing channels in multiorbital models for the Fe-pnictides
Weak-coupling approaches to the pairing problem in the iron pnictide
superconductors have predicted a wide variety of superconducting ground states.
We argue here that this is due both to the inadequacy of certain approximations
to the effective low-energy band structure, and to the natural near-degeneracy
of different pairing channels in superconductors with many distinct Fermi
surface sheets. In particular, we review attempts to construct two-orbital
effective band models, the argument for their fundamental inconsistency with
the symmetry of these materials, and the comparison of the dynamical
susceptibilities in two- and five-orbital models. We then present results for
the magnetic properties, pairing interactions, and pairing instabilities within
a five-orbital Random Phase Approximation model. We discuss the robustness of
these results for different dopings, interaction strengths, and variations in
band structure. Within the parameter space explored, an anisotropic,
sign-changing s-wave state and a d_x2-y2 state are nearly degenerate, due to
the near nesting of Fermi surface sheets.Comment: 17 pages, 23 figure