It is shown that because of their high magnetic susceptibility δ plutonium and its alloys are close to magnetic instabilities; dynamic effects of short-range magnetic order which are associated with the fluctuating magnetization density of electrons – spin fluctuations – play a large role in them. Long-range ferro- and antiferromagnetic order is suppressed. A model is developed for the spin fluctuations in plutonium. In this model, because of strong magneto-elastic coupling the spin-fluctuation energy depends on the volume of the crystal and is independent of temperature and spatial dispersion. It is shown that the contribution of the zero-point quantum spin-fluctuations is largely temperature-independent, as a result of which saturation of local magnetic moments is absent, the Curie–Weiss law for the magnetic susceptibility breaks down, and below the melting temperature plutonium is a strongly quantum system. An explanation is given for the thermal expansion anomalies of the δ phase of plutonium and its alloys on the basis of the theory of magneto-volume effect with a negative magneto-elastic coupling constant.
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Translated from Atomnaya Énergiya, Vol. 107, No. 4, pp. 214–221, October, 2009.
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Solontsov, A.Z., Orlov, V.K., Kiselev, S.A. et al. Magnetism and anomalous properties of plutonium. At Energy 107, 263–271 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10512-010-9224-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10512-010-9224-0