Itinerant electron metamagnetism in LaCo$_9$Si$_4$

TL;DR

This paper reports on the discovery of itinerant metamagnetism and quantum criticality in LaCo$_9$Si$_4$, characterized by low critical fields and site-dependent magnetic moments, combining experimental and theoretical approaches.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed investigation of itinerant electron metamagnetism and quantum critical behavior in LaCo$_9$Si$_4$ through combined experimental and ab-initio methods.

Findings

Critical fields of 3.5 T and 6 T for different orientations.

Presence of a small ferromagnetic moment at specific Co-sites.

Evidence for metamagnetic quantum criticality.

Abstract

The strongly exchange enhanced Pauli paramagnet LaCo$_9$Si$_4$ is found to exhibit an itinerant metamagnetic phase transition with indications for metamagnetic quantum criticality. Our investigation comprises magnetic, specific heat, and NMR measurements as well as ab-initio electronic structure calculations. The critical field is about 3.5 T for $H||c$ and 6 T for $H\bot c$, which is the lowest value ever found for rare earth intermetallic compounds. In the ferromagnetic state there appears a moment of about 0.2 $\mu_B$/Co at the $16k$ Co-sites, but sigificantly smaller moments at the 4d and $16l$ Co-sites.