Abstract
The electrical resistivity of the heavy fermion superconductor CePdIn was measured in magnetic fields up to 12 T and under hydrostatic pressures up to 21 kbar. At zero field, the low-temperature electrical resistivity in the normal state exhibits a power-law behavior with . In this non-Fermi-liquid regime, both the superconducting temperature and the coefficient decrease with increasing pressure, while the exponent and the resistivity maximum at increase. The findings indicate a destabilization of the superconducting state via increasing hybridization strength between the 4 and conduction electrons. In concert, enlargement of the -band width at the Fermi level results in a decrease of the density of states . Application of magnetic fields recovers the Fermi-liquid state at , at which both and show a tendency to diverge. The data obtained indicate that any change in the Kondo interaction strength in CePdIn by applied pressure or quenching spin fluctuations by external magnetic fields results in pushing away the system from the non-Fermi-liquid regime concomitantly with the destruction of the superconducting state. These new results support a scenario in which the superconductivity in CePdIn is driven by antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations in the vicinity of an underlying quantum critical point.
- Received 12 October 2010
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.83.064504
©2011 American Physical Society