Abstract
Combining old and new de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) and magnetoresistance data, we arrive at a detailed picture of the Fermi surface of the heavy fermion superconductor UPt3. Our work was partially motivated by a new proposal that two 5f valence electrons per formula unit in UPt3 are localized by correlation effects—agreement with previous dHvA measurements of the Fermi surface was invoked in its support. Comprehensive comparison with our new observations shows that this ‘partially localized’ model fails to predict the existence of a major sheet of the Fermi surface, and is therefore less compatible with experiment than the originally proposed ‘fully itinerant’ model of the electronic structure of UPt3. In support of this conclusion, we offer a more complete analysis of the fully itinerant band structure calculation, where we find a number of previously unrecognized extremal orbits on the Fermi surface.
Highlights
The heavy fermion superconductor UPt3 is regarded as an archetypal strongly correlated Fermi liquid
These de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) studies of UPt3, and their interpretation, were very influential in the development of our present understanding of heavy fermion systems, so it is essential to establish them unambiguously, the more so because the interpretation of the dHvA data has recently been called into question by an alternative proposal that two of the uranium 5f -electrons are localized in UPt3 [9]
The Fermi surface of UPt3 has over the past two decades been experimentally determined to a high degree of accuracy, allowing comparison with the results of electronic structure calculations at both coarse and fine levels of detail
Summary
The heavy fermion superconductor UPt3 is regarded as an archetypal strongly correlated Fermi liquid. Increasing the calculated contribution to γ of each Fermi surface sheet by the ratio of the measured to the calculated effective mass gave good agreement with the total measured linear coefficient of the specific heat: that is, these five sheets of the Fermi surface were found to account within error for the observed low temperature linear specific heat coefficient [7] These dHvA studies of UPt3, and their interpretation, were very influential in the development of our present understanding of heavy fermion systems, so it is essential to establish them unambiguously, the more so because the interpretation of the dHvA data has recently been called into question by an alternative proposal that two of the uranium 5f -electrons are localized in UPt3 [9]. One of the central goals of this paper is to critically examine this claim
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