High-energy magnetic response in the intermetallic compound CeSn3

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Abstract
Neutron inelastic scattering measurements have been performed on the intermetallic compound CeSn3 with the use of high-incident-energy neutrons on a time-of-flight spectrometer. The magnetic response at low temperatures shows a broad inelastic hump centred around 40 meV, in addition to the usual quasielastic spectrum centred on zero energy. With increasing temperature the inelastic hump 'melts away', i.e. it spectral weight is transferred progressively into the quasielastic part such that around the temperature of the maximum in the susceptibility ( approximately 130K) no observable trace of the inelastic hump remains and the full magnetic response can be described by a single quasielastic spectrum. Several possible mechanisms, namely a modified form of crystal-field excitation, a transition across the hybridisation gap in the 4f band at low temperatures or a localised excitation of the 4f electron to the Fermi level could plausibly account for the observations.