Abstract
We performed ultrasonic measurements on a single crystal of PrMg 3 . The characteristic Curie-type softening was observed in temperature dependence of transverse mode ( C 11 - C 12 ) / 2 below 8 K down to 0.8 K. This softening in PrMg 3 is caused by a non-Kramers Γ 3 doublet ground state having electric quadrupoles O u and O v and magnetic octupole T xyz . The elastic constant ( C 11 - C 12 ) / 2 shows a minimum at 25 K, which cannot be explained by the quadrupole susceptibility based on the crystal electric field (CEF) levels. However, considering higher order ( l = 4 ) multipole , namely electric hexadecapole, the minimum around 25 K was well reproduced. At lower temperatures, a shoulder anomaly in elastic constant being deviated from the Curie-type softening was observed around 100–800 mK in ( C 11 - C 12 ) / 2 . This anomaly is unaffected by magnetic fields up to 14 T.
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