Probing Magnetism in the Vortex Phase of PuCoGa5 by X-Ray Magnetic Circular Dichroism

We measure x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) spectra at the Pu M-4,M-5 absorption edges from a newly prepared high-quality single crystal of the heavy-fermion superconductor (PuCoGa5)-Pu-242, exhibiting a critical temperature T-c = 18.7 K. The experiment probes the vortex phase below T-c and shows that an external magnetic field induces a Pu 5f magnetic moment at 2 K equal to the temperature-independent moment measured in the normal phase up to 300 K by a superconducting quantum interference device. This observation is in agreement with theoretical models claiming that the Pu atoms in PuCoGa5 have a nonmagnetic singlet ground state resulting from the hybridization of the conduction electrons with the intermediate-valence 5f electronic shell. Unexpectedly, XMCD spectra show that the orbital component of the 5f magnetic moment increases significantly between 30 and 2 K; the antiparallel spin component increases as well, leaving the total moment practically constant. We suggest that this indicates a low-temperature breakdown of the complete Kondo-like screening of the local 5f moment.