Wing structure in the phase diagram of the Ising Ferromagnet URhGe close to its tricritical point investigated by angle-resolved magnetization measurements

Abstract

High-precision angle-resolved dc magnetization and magnetic torque studies were performed on a single-crystalline sample of URhGe, an orthorhombic Ising ferromagnet with the $c$ axis being the magnetization easy axis, in order to investigate the phase diagram around the ferromagnetic (FM) reorientation transition in a magnetic field near the $b$ axis. We have clearly detected first-order transition in both the magnetization and the magnetic torque at low temperatures, and determined detailed profiles of the wing structure of the three-dimensional $T$-$H_{b}$-$H_{c}$ phase diagram, where $H_{c}$ and $H_{b}$ denotes the field components along the $c$ and the $b$ axes, respectively. The quantum wing critical points are located at $\mu_0H_c\sim\pm$1.1 T and $\mu_0H_b\sim$13.5 T. Two second-order transition lines at the boundaries of the wing planes rapidly tend to approach with each other with increasing temperature up to $\sim 3$ K. Just at the zero conjugate field ($H_c=0$), however, a signature of the first-order transition can still be seen in the field derivative of the magnetization at $\sim 4$ K, indicating that the tricritical point exists in a rather high temperature region above 4 K. This feature of the wing plane structure is consistent with the theoretical expectation that three second-order transition lines merge tangentially at the triciritical point.