Abstract
The analysis of low-temperature specific heat of rare-earth (RE)-containing quasicrystals and periodic approximants and consequent interpretation of their electronic properties in the T → 0 limit is frequently hampered by the Schottky effect, where crystalline electric fields lift degeneracy of the RE-ion Hund's rule ground state and introduce additional contribution to the specific heat. When the low-temperature specific heat C is analyzed in the C/T versus T2 scale, the Schottky effect (a single-ion property in a system of non-interacting electrons) and the electron-electron interactions both yield a very similar upturn in the T → 0 limit. The origin of the upturn can be unraveled from the magnetic-field dependence of the low-temperature specific heat.
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