Investigation of nonmagnetic degenerated ground state in a cubic 4f2 system PrMgNi4

DOI

Praseodymium-based cubic compounds with a 4f2 configuration have attracted much attention. In case the crystalline electric field ground state is a nonmagnetic doublet, the magnetic dipole is quenched but electric quadrupole and magnetic octupole become active. In the present proposal, we focused on PrMgNi4 exhibiting a possible nonmagnetic degenerated ground state. The magnetic specific heat Cm/T shows a broad maximum at around 3 K, which can be reproduced by a two-level model with a ground state doublet. Futhermore, on cooling below 1 K, Cm/T approaches a constant value, which is explained by a random two-level model. Thereby, the twofold degeneracy could be lifted by symmetry lowering due to excess Mg atoms substituted for Pr atoms or the strong c-f hybridization. Inelastic neutron scattering must be a suitable probe to reveal the origin of the hindered long-range quadrupole ordering.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1920297-1
Metadata Access https://icatisis.esc.rl.ac.uk/oaipmh/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_datacite&identifier=oai:icatisis.esc.rl.ac.uk:inv/108633435
Provenance
Creator Dr Tatiana Guidi; Mr Yu Yamane; Dr Yuka Kusanose; Professor Takahiro Onimaru; Dr Devashi Adroja; Dr Yasuyuki Shimura; Miss Rikako Yamamoto
Publisher ISIS Neutron and Muon Source
Publication Year 2022
Rights CC-BY Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess true
Contact isisdata(at)stfc.ac.uk
Representation
Resource Type Dataset
Discipline Natural Sciences; Physics
Temporal Coverage Begin 2019-11-13T08:30:00Z
Temporal Coverage End 2019-11-20T05:18:52Z