2022/01/06 by M. Wartenbe, Wartenbe, M., P. H. Tobash +9 · 1 citation
Chemistry · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Chemical Physics Studies #FOS: Physical sciences #Radioactive element chemistry and processing #Rare-earth and actinide compounds #Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2201.02255
openalex publication_date 2022/01/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Electronic correlations associated with incipient magnetism have long been recognized as an important factor in stabilizing the largest atomic volume δ phase of plutonium, yet their strength compared to those in the rare earths and neighboring actinides in the Periodic Table has largely remained a mystery. We show here using calorimetry measurements, together with prior detailed measurements of the phonon dispersion, that the 5f electrons of the δ phase reside in a pseudogapped state, accompanied by reductions in various physical properties below a characteristic temperature T^∗≈~100~K. The small characteristic energy scale of the pseudogapped state implies that the 5f electrons in plutonium are much closer to the threshold for localization and magnetic order than has been suggested by state-of-the-art electronic structure theory, revealing plutonium to be arguably the most strongly correlated of the elements.