Abstract
The magnetoelastic and quadrupolar properties of the hexaboride compound PrB 6 are determined by measurements of the elastic constants, the parastriction and the third-order magnetic susceptibility. The magnetoelastic effects are sizeable only for the trigonal symmetry lowering mode. The quadrupolar pair interactions are negative in the paramagnetic phase in agreement with the multiaxial spin structure stabilized at low temperature by antiferroquadrupolar interactions. The quadrupolar couplings seem to coexist with additional terms. Spin fluctuations are in particular present above the Néel temperature. The quadrupolar interactions do not appear to be responsible for the first-order magnetic transition. The magnetic phase diagrams have been build for the three main crystallographic directions of the cubic cell. They exhibit at low field a transition from the double- k structure to the simple- k one, which was previously observed along the twofold axis by neutron diffraction. Only weak field-dependences of the Néel temperature and of the commensurate-incommensurate phase transition temperature have been observed.
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