Itinerant spin excitations near the hidden order transition in URu2Si2

By means of neutron scattering we show that the high temperature precursor to the hidden order state of the heavy fermion superconductor URu2Si2 exhibits heavily damped incommensurate paramagnons whose strong energy dispersion is very similar to that of the long-lived longitudinal f spin excitations that appear below T-0. This suggests that there is a strongly hybridized character to the itinerant excitations observed previously above the hidden order transition. Here we present evidence that the itinerant excitations, like those in chromium, are due to Fermi surface nesting of hole and electron pockets; hence the hidden order phase probably originates from a Fermi surface instability. We identify wavevectors that span nested regions of a f-d hybridized band calculation and that match the neutron spin crossover from incommensurate to commensurate on approach to the hidden order phase.