X-ray absorption spectroscopy in the heavy Fermion compound -YbAlB at high magnetic fields

Terashima, Taku*; Matsuda, Yasuhiro*; Kuga, Kentaro*; Suzuki, Shintaro*; Matsumoto, Yosuke*; Nakatsuji, Satoru*; Kondo, Akihiro*; Kindo, Koichi*; Kawamura, Naomi*; Mizumaki, Masaichiro*; Inami, Toshiya

-YbAlB shows strong valence fluctuation as well as heavy fermion behavior at low temperatures. It has been theoretically suggested that the quantum criticality owing to the valence fluctuation found in Yb ions plays an important role in the peculiar properties of this material. In this work, we measured the X-ray absorption spectra (XAS) and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) at the L3 edge of Yb ions in high magnetic fields of up to 40 T. It is found that the XAS are almost independent of the magnetic field at 2 K, which proves that there is no significant valence change in this field range. The XMCD spectrum exhibits a distinct negative peak at the low-energy side of the L3 edge as well as the main positive peak near the white line. The negative XMCD peak is attributed to the quadrupole transition between the 2p and 4f states, and gives us microscopic information on the 4f state. This finding supports the recent theoretical proposal that is the ground state of the localized Yb magnetic moment, where is the z-component of the total angular momentum of Yb.