Dependence of the effective masses in YbAl3 on magnetic field and disorder.

ABSTRACT

The susceptibility and specific heat--and hence the effective mass--of the intermediate valence compound YbAl3 show anomalous enhancement below the Fermi liquid temperature T(coh) approximately 40 K. We show that these anomalies are suppressed by alloying in Yb1-xLuxAl3 indicating high sensitivity to lattice coherence. The de Haas-van Alphen effective masses for key branches of the Fermi surface are reduced by magnetic fields B>40 T. We argue that this reduction does not arise from 4f polarization but reflects renormalization of the quasiparticle states by the field.