La substitution effect and hyperfine-enhanced Pr nuclear spin dynamics in PrPb; La NMR study in PrLaPb

Tokunaga, Yo  ; Sakai, Hironori   ; Chudo, Hiroyuki ; Kambe, Shinsaku  ; Yasuoka, Hiroshi; Suzuki, Hiroyuki*; Walstedt, R. E.*; Homma, Yoshiya*; Aoki, Dai*; Shiokawa, Yoshinobu*

La NMR studies have been performed on PrPb substituted with 3% La. The temperature dependence of the local magnetic susceptibility around La ions has been extracted from the La Knight shift. These data show that the non-magnetic crystalline-electric-field (CEF) ground state (GS) is preserved even at the nearest neighboring Pr ions, although their CEF level scheme is slightly modified due to the La substitution. On the other hand, the temperature dependence of the nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate is found to be well reproduced by assuming the same CEF level scheme over a wide temperature range. However, shows a strong upturn below 10 K, which is not expected from the non-magnetic CEF GS. We show that the low temperature anomaly can be quantitatively understood in terms of a cross-relaxation process between Pr and La nuclear spins.