Magnetic Polarization and Fermi Surface Instability: Case of YbRh2Si2

Abstract

We report thermoelectric and resitivity measurements of antiferromagnetic heavy fermion compound YRh2Si2 at low temperatures down and under high magnetic field. At low temperature, the thermoelectric power and the resistivity present several distinct anomalies as a function of field around H_0 ~ 9.5 T when the magnetic polarization reaches a critical value. The anomalies are accompanied with a change of sign from negative at low magnetic field to positive at high field (H>H_0) and are resulting from a Lifshitz-type topological transition of the Fermi surface. A logarithmic divergence of S/T at T \to 0 K just above H_0 (H=11.5 T) is quite comparable to the well known divergence of S/T in the temperature range above the antiferromagnetic order at H=0 T referred to as non Fermi liquid behavior. The transition will be compared to the well characterized Fermi surface change in CeRu2Si2 at its pseudo-metamagnetic transition.