Anomalies of magnetoresistance in Ce-based heavy fermion compounds

Magnetoresistance Δρ(H,T) of several heavy-fermion compounds, CeAl2, CeAl3 and CeCu6, substitutional solid solutions with quantum critical behavior CeCu6–xAux (x = 0.1, 0.2) and alloys with magnetic ground state Ce(Al1–xMx)2 (M = Co, Ni, x ≤ 0.8) was studied in a wide range of temperatures (1.8–40 K) in magnetic fields up to 80 kOe. It was shown that a consistent interpretation of the field dependences of the resistance for both non-magnetic and magnetically ordered cerium-based intermetallic compounds with strong electron correlations can be achieved within the framework of an approach that accounts for scattering of charge carriers by localized magnetic moments in a metal matrix. Within this approach, three different components of the magnetoresistance of cerium intermetallic compounds were identified: the negative Brillouin contribution proportional to the local magnetization ( −Δρ/ρ∼Mloc2), the alternating linear contribution ( Δρ/ρ∼H) and the magnetic component, saturating in magnetic fields below 15...