Quadrupole and hexadecapole ordering in DyB
C
; Direct observation with resonant X-ray diffraction
Tanaka, Yoshikazu*; Inami, Toshiya; Lovesey, S. W.*; Knight, K. S.*; Yakhou, F.*; Mannix, D.*; Kokubun, Jun*; Kanazawa, Masayuki*; Ishida, Kotaro*; Nanao, Susumu*; Nakamura, Tetsuya*; Yamauchi, Hiroki*
; Onodera, Hideya*; Oyama, Kenji*; Yamaguchi, Yasuo*
Direct evidence of the spatial ordering of Dy 4
quadrupole and hexadecapole moments in DyB
C
is demonstrated by resonant X-ray diffraction enhanced by an electric quadrupole event (
2 resonance) at the Dy L
absorption edge. The diffraction data show that the structural phase transition at 
= 24.7 K is accompanied by a reduction in the symmetry of the Dy site to 2/
, from 4/
, and the spatial ordering of the time-even Dy multipoles with A
character. Below 
the crystal structure is described by the space group
4
/
and Dy ions occupy sites (4
). The distortion at T
involves the lattice occupied by B and C ions, and it amounts to a buckling of B-C planes that are normal to the two-fold rotation axis of 2/
. An immediately plausible model of low-energy Dy states correlates data on the specific heat, our X-ray diffraction signals, and magnetic ordering below 15.3 K which has been observed in magnetic neutron diffraction.