Entropy balance and evidence for local spin singlets in a Kagome-like magnet

We have measured the specific heat C(T) of the S = 3 / 2 Kagome-lattice-containing compound SrCr (9p)Ga (12-9p)O (19). We find little field dependence of the low-temperature C(T), consistent with a low-energy spectrum dominated by many-body singlet excitations. At high temperatures, we recover only approximately 50% of the total R ln4 entropy.

Enhanced critical currents of superconducting ErNi2B2C in the ferromagnetically ordered state

We report on transport and magnetization studies of the critical current in single crystal ErNi2B2C for applied fields below 4 kG. Below T approximately 2.5 K superconductivity coexists with weak ferromagnetism. We find that the critical currents are strongly enhanced for all field orientations in this ferromagnetic regime, corresponding to a threefold increase of the pinning force of the flux line lattice. We speculate that this increase is due to strong pair breaking by the ferromagnetism.