Abstract
Abstract Magnetic ordering phenomena in rare-earth intermetallic compounds can be unravelled most advantageously in the case of simple crystallographic structure and when a combination of microscopic techniques is applied. Here we shall present the temperature and magnetic field dependence of the magnetic moment of the cubic PrX2 compounds (X = Pt, Rh, Ru, Ir), as inferred from hyperfine specific-heat, magnetization and neutron-diffraction measurements. The results are compared with a mean-field calculation, taking crystalline electric field and bilinear (dipolar) exchange interactions into account. Adopting experimental values of the Lea, Leask and Wolf parameters x and W from inelastic neutron scattering results, we find satisfactory agreement between our magnetic data and the mean-field theory. An observed discrepancy of about 15% between the calculated and measured saturation values of the spontaneous magnetization can be explained by the presence of quadrupolar interactions.
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