Magnetic Susceptibility and Spin Fluctuations in the Nonsuperconducting Phase of PuCoGa5

Abstract

Within the Hubbard model with allowance for Hund’s and spin–orbit interactions, the concepts of thermal spin fluctuations in a strongly correlated system of f electrons in PuCoGa₅ are developed. The effect of fluctuations of the spin magnetic moments of different orbitals on the spin–orbit splitting of the f  electron spectrum is considered. The mean square magnetic moment obtained in this case makes it possible to describe the observed temperature dependence of the magnetic susceptibility (χ(T)) of PuCoGa₅ near and above the electron pairing temperature. Estimates of the radius of spin correlations correspond in order of magnitude to the sizes of Cooper pairs in superconductors with the d symmetry of the order parameter. In the high-temperature region, the magnetic susceptibility obeys the Curie–Weiss law. With decreasing temperature, when approaching the pairing temperature, the ferromagnetic instability is suppressed and the temperature maximum of χ(T) appears.