Temperature and Field Dependence of the Order Parameter in the Antiferroquadrupolar Phase of CeB6 from μ+ Knight Shift Measurements

Abstract

The Fermi contact hyperfine contribution to the Knight shift of positive muons, implanted at the interstitial 3d sites in CeB6, is found to exhibit the same temperature dependence below T(Q) in phase II as the quadrupolar order parameter determined from resonant and nonresonant x-ray scattering. Furthermore, the contact coupling parameter is shown to be anisotropic and field dependent. These unanticipated features are interpreted to arise from the RKKY induced conduction electron spin polarization, which depends on the orientation and expectation value of the ordered 4f quadrupole moments.