Search for vibronic excitations in CeAuAl3 - continuation (p11633)

Recently, time-of-flight neutron spectroscopy in polycrystalline samples of CeCuAl3 has provided putative evidence for a so-called vibronic mode – a combined crystal field - phonon excitation. These types of modes may be responsible for certain forms of magnetically mediated superconductivity or non-Fermi liquid behavior. Our measurement on single-crystal CeAuAl3 performed on the PUMA (p10684, see references) revealed a weakly dispersive excitation at energy 7.9 meV, which is clearly magnetically driven and connected to phonons. However to better understand the nature of this hybridized excitation, more phonon measurements are necessary. Therefore we propose to determine the detailed dispersion of the low lying optical phonons in the energy range between 12-50 meV.Instruments: