Valence Transition in Chemically Collapsed Cerium

Abstract

The scaling behavior of the Landau equation of state which describes the valence transition in cerium is studied as a function of the size and valence of various chemical additives. Two major results are the relatively direct determination of the valence $N$ of cerium at the critical point (viz., $N=3.65\mathrm{}$) and the finding that the presence of chemical additives leads to a lattice-mediated rather than Coulombic bootstrapping term, which addresses the long-standing question of what is the driving mechanism for the valence transition.