English

Second Low Temperature Phase Transition in Frustrated UNi_4B

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2009-10-31 v1 Materials Science

Abstract

Hexagonal UNi_4B is magnetically frustrated, yet it orders antiferromagnetically at T_N = 20 K. However, one third of the U-spins remain paramagnetic below this temperature. In order to track these spins to lower temperature, we measured the specific heat C of \unib between 100 mK and 2 K, and in applied fields up to 9 T. For zero field there is a sharp kink in C at TT^\ast\approx 330 mK, which we interpret as an indication of a second phase transition involving paramagnetic U. The rise in γ=C/T\gamma = C/T between 7 K and 330 mK and the absence of a large entropy liberated at TT^\ast may be due to a combination of Kondo screening effects and frustration that strongly modifies the low T transition.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9901247,
  title  = {Second Low Temperature Phase Transition in Frustrated UNi_4B},
  author = {R. Movshovich and M. Jaime and S. Mentink and A. A. Menovsky and J. A. Mydosh},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9901247},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

4 pages, 4 figures