ANOMALOUS THERMAL-EXPANSION OF INTERMEDIATE VALENCE COMPOUNDS

A low temperature anomaly in the thermal expansion is predicted for all rare earth compounds with an intermediate valence. The anomaly is caused by a logarithmic variation of the f-electron self-energy with temperature. The sign of the anomaly depends on the Hund's rule correlations of the rare earth ions and is predicted unequivocally by the theory. © 1979.