Plutonium and quantum criticality

The unusual properties of the elemental plutonium have long been a puzzle. It has been suggested that these properties may be related to quantum criticality [G. Chapline, J.L. Smith, LA Sci. 26 (2000) 1]. In this talk we will describe some experimental observations on rare earth and actinide materials which suggest that there are pairing correlations in all f-electron metals, and that the anomalous properties of the actinides in the vicinity of Np/Pu/Am, even at elevated temperatures, is associated with a critical point in the variation of the pair condensate order parameter with atomic number.