Plutonium-Based Heavy-Fermion Systems

Abstract

An effective mass of charge carriers that is significantly larger that the mass of a free electron develops at low temperatures in certain lanthanide- and actinide-based metals, including those formed with plutonium, due to strong electron-electron interactions. This heavy-fermion mass is reflected in a substantially enhanced electronic coefficient of specific heat $\gamma$, which for elemental Pu itself is much larger than that of normal metals. By our definition, there are twelve Pu-based heavy-fermion compounds, most discovered recently, whose basic properties are known and discussed. Relative to other examples, these Pu-based heavy-fermion systems are particularly complex due in part to the possible simultaneous presence of multiple, nearly degenerate 5f${}^n$ configurations. This complexity poses significant opportunities as well as challenges, including understanding the origin of unconventional superconductivity in some of these materials.

35 pages, 8 figures

References in corpus (11)

• Fermi-liquid instabilities at magnetic quantum phase transitions
• Nature of the 5f states in actinide metals
• Magnetism in Fe-based superconductors
• Spin resonance in the d-wave superconductor CeCoIn5
• Magnetically driven superconductivity in CeCu2Si2
• Modelling the Localized to Itinerant Electronic Transition in the Heavy Fermion System CeIrIn5
• Multiconfigurational nature of 5f orbitals in uranium and plutonium intermetallics
• Crystal-field and Kondo scale investigation of CeMIn5 (M=Co, Ir and Rh): a combined x-ray absorption and inelastic neutron study
• Electronic Duality in Strongly Correlated Matter
• Hybridization and superconducting gaps in heavy-fermion superconductor PuCoGa5 probed via the dynamics of photoinduced quasiparticles
• PuPt2In7: a computational and experimental investigation

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Advances in actinide thin films: synthesis, properties, and future directions
• Controlling unconventional superconductivity in artificially engineered $f$-electron Kondo superlattices
• Strong correlation between ferromagnetic superconductivity and pressure-enhanced ferromagnetic fluctuations in UGe${}_2$
• ${}^{239}$Pu nuclear magnetic resonance in the candidate topological insulator PuB${}_4$
• $\text{Ab initio}$ dynamical mean-field theory with natural orbitals renormalization group impurity solver: Formalism and applications
• Temperature-driven hidden 5f itinerant-localized crossover in heavy-fermion compound PuIn3
• Probing magnetism in the vortex phase of PuCoGa${}_5$ by X-ray magnetic circular dichroism
• Quasiparticle multiplets and 5f electronic correlation in prototypical plutonium borides
• Collapse of quasiparticle multiplets and $5f$ itinerant-localized crossovers in cubic phase Pu${}_3$Ga
• Extended Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance Study of the Heavy-Fermion Superconductor PuCoGa${}_5$
• Unraveling exotic 5$f$ states and paramagnetic phase of PuSn${}_3$
• Local aging effects in PuB${}_4$: Growing inhomogeneity and slow dynamics of local-field fluctuations probed by ${}^{239}$Pu NMR
• Nuclear magnetic resonance investigation of the heavy fermion system Ce${}_2$CoAl${}_7$Ge${}_4$
• Microscopic investigation of enhanced Pauli paramagnetism in metallic Pu${}_2$C${}_3$