Coupled electron-nuclear magnetism and neutron diffraction

Abstract

It often occurs that, in a rare-earth compound having a singlet electronic ground state, a long-range magnetically orderedstate is formed by coupling of the nuclear spins with the electrons through the hyperfine interaction, at millikelvin temperatures. Neutron scattering has been used to measure the details of the magnetization processes of both the electrons and the nuclear spins in the coupled state in PrSn3, HoVO4, and PrCu2. The polarized nuclear spins could be observed through spin dependent nuclear scattering by 141Pran 165Ho. The experimental results for PrSn3 and HoVO4 can be explained very well based on mean field considerations. For PrCu2, a recent experiment indicates that a sinusoidal screw structure is realized simultaneously both in the electronic and nuclear spin systems of this material. Such a magnetic structure requires a more refined theoretical explanation.