Evidence for a common physical description of non-Fermi-liquid behavior in f-electron systems (original) (raw)

The non-Fermi-liquid (NFL) behavior observed in the low temperature specific heat C(T)C(T)C(T) and magnetic susceptibility chi(T)\chi(T)chi(T) of f-electron systems is analyzed within the context of a recently developed theory based on Griffiths singularities. Measurements of C(T)C(T)C(T) and chi(T)\chi(T)chi(T) in the systems Th1−xUxPd2Al3Th_{1-x}U_{x}Pd_{2}Al_{3}Th1xUxPd2Al3, Y1−xUxPd3Y_{1-x}U_{x}Pd_3Y1xUxPd3, and UCu5−xMxUCu_{5-x}M_{x}UCu5xMx (M = Pd, Pt) are found to be consistent with C(T)/Tproptochi(T)proptoT−1+lambdaC(T)/T \propto \chi(T) \propto T^{-1+\lambda}C(T)/Tproptochi(T)proptoT1+lambda predicted by this model with lambda<1\lambda <1lambda<1 in the NFL regime. These results suggest that the NFL properties observed in a wide variety of f-electron systems can be described within the context of a common physical picture.