Electronic structure of cerium and light rare-earth intermetallics

Abstract

We give an overview of the use of the impurity Anderson Hamiltonian to describe the spectroscopic and low-energy thermodynamic properties of cerium intermetallics, with emphasis on interpreting 4f photoemission spectra. We show Ce valence-band resonant photoemission, Bremsstrahlung isochromat and 3d X-ray photoemission spectra for CeRu2, CeNi2, CeIr2 and CeAl, and give a complete theoretical analysis of the spectra. We summarize the relation between the large and small energy scale properties. For each system, all the spectra, as well as the static magnetic susceptibility and Kondo temperature, can be described by the model using essentially the same parameters. We also present details of resonant photoemission spectra for five other cerium compounds, CeSi2, CeOs2, CePd3, CeCo2 and CeNi5, and discuss generally the problem of obtaining the experimental 4f spectrum. Alternative theories of 4f photoemission are examined critically and we give applications of the Anderson Hamiltonian theory to CeAl2, PrAl2, and NdAl2.