Measurements of the static magnetization, susceptibility and ESR of Gd spin
probes have been performed to study the properties of antiferromagnetically
ordered La_{2-x-y}Eu_ySr_xCuO_4 (x less or equal 0.02) with the low temperature
tetragonal structure. According to the static magnetic measurements the CuO_2
planes are magnetically decoupled in this structural phase. The ESR study
reveals strong magnetic fluctuations at the ESR frequency which are not present
in the orthorhombic phase. It is argued that this drastic enhancement of the
spin fluctuations is due to a considerable weakening of the interlayer exchange
and a pronounced influence of hole motion on the antiferromagnetic properties
of lightly hole doped La_2CuO_4. No evidence for the stripe phase formation at
small hole doping is obtained in the present study.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, 3 EPS figures; to be published in Journal of
Physics: Condensed Matte