Probing the magnetic phases in the Ni-V alloy close to the disordered ferromagnetic quantum critical point with μSR

Abstract

Zero (ZF) and longitudinal field (LF) muon spin relaxation data of the d-metal alloy Ni1-xVx are presented at several vanadium concentrations x below and above the critical xc ≈ 11 % where long-range ferromagnetic (FM) order is suppressed. The clear single precession frequency observed for Ni, as expected for a homogeneous FM, changes to rather damped osciallation with small V substitution at x = 4 %, confirming magnetic inhomogeneities caused by the less magnetic V environments in the magnetic Ni matrix. Furthermore, local fields and spatial field distributions can be estimated to characterize different inhomogeneous regimes developing with x in the FM phase of Ni1-xVx. In the regime of x = 7 – 10 % a Kubo Toyabe function well describes the low temperature ZF and LF asymmetry data supporting a static Gaussian field distribution. Closer to the quantum critical concentration a single scale static Kubo Toyabe function with one field distribution is not sufficient to describe the muon relaxation. These data indicate that further changes in spatial distributions and dynamics are evolving as expected within the critical regime of a disordered quantum critical point.