Gapped excitation in dense Kondo lattice CePtZn

摘要

We report on neutron scattering and muon spin relaxation measurements of dense Kondo lattice CePtZn. The system develops long-range incommensurate magnetic order as the temperature is reduced below T_N - 1.75 K. Interestingly, a Q-independent gap at E = 0.65 meV in the energy spectrum is found to co-exist with the long-range magnetic order. The gap persists to a very high temperature of T ～ 100 K. The Q-independent characteristic and its persistence to high temperature hint that the gapped excitation may be manifesting the excited state of the ground-state doublet of the crystal-field energy levels. However, the observed broadness in the linewidth with distinct temperature and field dependencies makes it a nontrivial phenomenon. Qualitative analysis of the experimental data suggests the possible co-existence of a local critical behavior, which is onset near the critical field of H ～ 3 T, with the crystal-field excitation in the dynamic properties.