877 research outputs found
Evolution of crystalline electric field effects, superconductivity, and heavy fermion behavior in the specific heat of Pr(OsRu)Sb
Specific heat measurements were made on single crystals of the
superconducting filled skutterudite series Pr(OsRu)Sb
down to 0.6 K. Crystalline electric field fits in the normal state produced
parameters which were in agreement with previous measurements. Bulk
superconductivity was observed for all values of the Ru concentration with
transition temperatures consistent with previous experiments, confirming a
minimum in at . The data below appear to be more
consistent with power law behavior for (PrOsSb), and with
exponential behavior for . An enhanced electronic
specific heat coefficient was observed for , further
supporting as a critical concentration where the physical
properties abruptly change. Significant enhancement of above
the weak coupling value was only observed for and .Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Physical Review B. v2: text added
and figures modifie
Superconductivity, magnetic order, and quadrupolar order in the filled skutterudite system PrNdOsSb
Superconductivity, magnetic order, and quadrupolar order have been
investigated in the filled skutterudite system
PrNdOsSb as a function of composition in magnetic
fields up to 9 tesla and at temperatures between 50 mK and 10 K. Electrical
resistivity measurements indicate that the high field ordered phase (HFOP),
which has been identified with antiferroquadruoplar order, persists to
0.5. The superconducting critical temperature of PrOsSb
is depressed linearly with Nd concentration to 0.55, whereas the
Curie temperature of NdOsSb is depressed linearly with Pr
composition to () 0.45. In the superconducting region, the upper
critical field is depressed quadratically with in the range 0
0.3, exhibits a kink at 0.3, and then
decreases linearly with in the range 0.3 0.6. The
behavior of appears to be due to pair breaking caused by the
applied magnetic field and the exhange field associated with the polarization
of the Nd magnetic moments, in the superconducting state. From magnetic
susceptibility measurements, the correlations between the Nd moments in the
superconducting state appear to change from ferromagnetic in the range 0.3
0.6 to antiferromagnetic in the range 0
0.3. Specific heat measurements on a sample with 0.45
indicate that magnetic order occurs in the superconducting state, as is also
inferred from the depression of with .Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, currently submitted to Phys. Rev.
Crystalline electric field effects in the electrical resistivity of PrOsSb
The temperature and magnetic field dependencies of the electrical
resistivity of the recently discovered heavy fermion superconductor
\PrOsSb{} have features that are associated with the splitting of the Pr
Hund's rule multiplet by the crystalline electric field (CEF). These features
are apparently due to magnetic exchange and aspherical Coulomb scattering from
the thermally populated CEF-split Pr energy levels. The data
in zero magnetic field can be described well by calculations based on CEF
theory for various ratios of magnetic exchange and aspherical Coulomb
scattering, and yield CEF parameters that are qualitatively consistent with
those previously derived from magnetic susceptibility, specific heat, and
inelastic neutron scattering measurements. Calculated isotherms for a
ground state qualitatively account for the `dome-shaped' feature
in the measured isotherms.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Journal of Physics: Condensed Matte
Evidence for a common physical description of non-Fermi-liquid behavior in f-electron systems
The non-Fermi-liquid (NFL) behavior observed in the low temperature specific
heat and magnetic susceptibility of f-electron systems is
analyzed within the context of a recently developed theory based on Griffiths
singularities. Measurements of and in the systems
, , and (M = Pd,
Pt) are found to be consistent with predicted by this model with in the NFL regime.
These results suggest that the NFL properties observed in a wide variety of
f-electron systems can be described within the context of a common physical
picture.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Competition between phonon superconductivity and Kondo screening in mixed valence and heavy fermion compounds
We consider competition of Kondo effect and s-wave superconductivity in heavy
fermion and mixed valence superconductors, using the phenomenological approach
for the periodic Anderson model. Similar to the well known results for
single-impurity Kondo effect in superconductors, we have found principal
possibility of a re-entrant regime of the superconducting transition
temperature, , in heavy fermion superconductors in a narrow range of model
parameters and concentration of f-electrons. Suppression of in mixed
valence superconductors is much weaker. Our theory has most validity in the
low-temperature Fermi liquid regime, without re-entrant behavior of . To
check its applicability, we performed the fit for the -dependence of
in CeLaRuSi and obtained an excellent agreement with the
experimental data, although no re-entrance was found in this case. Other
experimental data are discussed in the light of our theoretical analysis. In
particular, we compare temperatures of the superconducting transition for some
known homologs, i.e., the analog periodic lattice compounds with and without
f-elements. For a few pairs of homologs superconductivity exists only in the
heavy fermion materials, thus confirming uniqueness of superconductivity
mechanisms for the latter. We suggest that for some other compounds the value
of may remain of the same order in the two homologs, if superconductivity
originates mainly on some light Fermi surface, but induces sizable
superconducting gap on another Fermi surface,for which hybridization or other
heavy fermion effects are more significant.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, pd
Strong magnetic fluctuations in superconducting state of CeCoIn
We show results on the vortex core dissipation through current-voltage
measurements under applied pressure and magnetic field in the superconducting
phase of CeCoIn. We find that as soon as the system becomes
superconducting, the vortex core resistivity increases sharply as the
temperature and magnetic field decrease. The sharp increase in flux flow
resistivity is due to quasiparticle scattering on critical antiferromagnetic
fluctuations. The strength of magnetic fluctuations below the superconducting
transition suggests that magnetism is complimentary to superconductivity and
therefore must be considered in order to fully account for the low-temperature
properties of CeCoIn.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure
Non-Fermi liquid behavior in a fluctuating valence system, the filled skutterudite compound CeRu_{4}As_{12}
Electrical resistivity , specific heat C, and magnetic susceptibility
measurements made on the filled skutterudite CeRu_4As_{12} reveal
non-Fermi liquid (NFL) T - dependences at low T, i.e., (T) T^{1.4}
and weak power law or logarithmic divergences in C(T)/T and (T).
Measurements also show that the T - dependence of the thermoelectric power S(T)
deviates from that seen in other Ce systems. The NFL behavior appears to be
associated with fluctuations of the Ce valence between 3^+ and 4^+ rather than
a typical Kondo lattice scenario that would be appropriate for an integral Ce
valence of 3^+.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figure
Quantum Monte Carlo diagonalization for many-fermion systems
In this study we present an optimization method based on the quantum Monte
Carlo diagonalization for many-fermion systems. Using the Hubbard-Stratonovich
transformation, employed to decompose the interactions in terms of auxiliary
fields, we expand the true ground-state wave function. The ground-state wave
function is written as a linear combination of the basis wave functions. The
Hamiltonian is diagonalized to obtain the lowest energy state, using the
variational principle within the selected subspace of the basis functions. This
method is free from the difficulty known as the negative sign problem. We can
optimize a wave function using two procedures. The first procedure is to
increase the number of basis functions. The second improves each basis function
through the operators, , using the Hubbard-Stratonovich
decomposition. We present an algorithm for the Quantum Monte Carlo
diagonalization method using a genetic algorithm and the renormalization
method. We compute the ground-state energy and correlation functions of small
clusters to compare with available data
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