Unusual metamagnetism in CeIrIn5

We report a high-field investigation (up to 45 T) of the metamagnetic transition in CeIrIn5 with resistivity and de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) effect measurements in the temperature range of 0.03-1 K. As the magnetic field is increased the resistivity increases, reaches a maximum at the metamagnetic critical field, and falls precipitously for fields just above the transition, while the amplitude of all measurable dHvA frequencies are significantly attenuated near the metamagnetic critical field. However, the dHvA frequencies and cyclotron masses are not substantially altered by the transition. In the low-field state, the resistivity is observed to increase toward low temperatures in a singular fashion, a behavior that is rapidly suppressed above the transition. Instead, in the high-field state, the resistivity monotonically increases with temperature with a dependence that is more singular than the iconic Fermi-liquid, temperature-squared behavior. Both the damping of the dHvA amplitudes and the increased resistivity near the metamagnetic critical field indicate an increased scattering rate for charge carriers consistent with critical fluctuation scattering in proximity to a phase transition. The dHvA amplitudes do not uniformly recover above the critical field, with some holelike orbits being entirely suppressed at high fields. These changes, taken as a whole, suggest that the metamagnetic transition in CeIrIn5 is associated with the polarization and localization of the heaviest of quasiparticles on the holelike Fermi surface. © 2009 The American Physical Society.