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MPIPKS:
Phase transitions and critical phenomena
Abstract:
Numerous materials feature unexplained phases with invisible or hidden order of electronic origin. A particularly mysterious case is that of Tb2Ti2O7, which avoids magnetic order to the lowest temperatures, but nevertheless has an unexplained second-order phase transition near T = 0.5 K. Our ultrasound measurements of Tb2Ti2O7 provide direct evidence of a huge softening followed by strong hardening of the structural lattice below T = 0.5 K. In the absence of magnetic order at this temperature, our results provide conclusive evidence for the proposed quadrupolar order and emphasize the importance of higher-order multipolar interactions in rare-earth frustrated magnets.
