Structural and magnetic transition in CeFeAsO: separated or connected?

Using an adapted Sn-flux growth technique we obtained comparatively large CeFeAsO single crystals of better quality than previously reported polycrystals or single crystals, as evidenced by much sharper anomalies at the structural and magnetic phase transitions as well as a much higher residual resistivity ratio of 12. In the magnetically ordered phase we observe a very pronounced metallic behavior of the in-plane resistivity, which excludes a Mott insulator regime at low temperature. The separation Delta_T = T_0 - T_N between structural and magnetic ordering temperatures decreases with increasing sample quality, from 18 K in the initial reports to 6 K in the present single crystals, demonstrating that this separation is not an intrinsic property of the RFeAsO systems. Our results indicate that the coupling between magnetic ordering and structural distortion is very similar in AFe2As2 and RFeAsO type of compounds, much more similar than previously thought. The implications of our experimental results give arguments both in favor and against the nematic phase model.Comment: published in PRB with the title 'Coupling between the structural and magnetic transition in CeFeAsO

Derived Subgroups of Fixed Points in Profinite Groups

The main result of this paper is the following theorem. Let q be a prime, A an elementary abelian group of order q^3. Suppose that A acts as a coprime group of automorphisms on a profinite group G in such a manner that C_G(a)' is periodic for each nontrivial element a in A. Then G' is locally finite.Comment: To appear in Glasgow Mathematical Journal (2011). 11 page