In zero magnetic field, the famous neutron spin resonance in the f-electron superconductor CeCoIn 5 is similar to the recently discovered exciton peak in the nonsuperconducting CeB 6 . A magnetic field splits the resonance in CeCoIn 5 into two components, indicating that it is a doublet. Here we employ inelastic neutron scattering (INS) to scrutinize the field dependence of spin fluctuations in CeB 6 . The exciton shows a markedly different behavior without any field splitting. Instead, we observe a second field-induced magnon whose energy increases with field. At the ferromagnetic zone center, however, we find only a single mode with a nonmonotonic field dependence. At low fields, it is initially suppressed to zero together with the antiferromagnetic order parameter, but then reappears at higher fields inside the hidden-order phase, following the energy of an electron spin resonance (ESR). This is a unique example of a ferromagnetic resonance in a heavy-fermion metal seen by both ESR and INS consistently over a broad range of magnetic fields. PACS numbers: 71.27.+a, 76.50.+g, 78.70.Nx, 76.30.Kg
INTRODUCTIONThe observation of neutron spin resonance within a broad range of materials, in particular high-T c cuprates [1], iron pnictides [2,3], and heavy-fermion superconductors [4][5][6], is recognized as an indicator of unconventional superconductivity. It was shown that sign-changing gap symmetry can lead to the existence of resonance behavior [7][8][9][10]. Of particular interest are inelastic neutron scattering (INS) results obtained on CeCoIn 5 , where a sharp resonance peak was observed within the superconducting phase [5,[11][12][13]. At first glance similar peaks were found in the antiferromagnetic (AFM) superconductor UPd 2 Al 3 [14,15], as well as in the normal state of the heavy-fermion metal YbRh 2 Si 2 [16], where superconductivity was recently discovered below ∼ 2 mK [17]. Another striking example of a resonant mode is given by the well known nonsuperconducting heavyfermion antiferromagnet CeB 6 [18,19]. The microscopic origins of such resonant magnetic excitations persisting in f-electron systems either with or without superconductivity may well differ among materials and are still hotly debated.The application of an external magnetic field may help to unmask the differences between these various excitations. For instance, among f-electron compounds, a weak quasielastic signal gives rise to a field-induced ferromagnetic (FM) excitation in CeRu 2 Si 2 [20]. In YbRh 2 Si 2 , two incommensurate excitation branches merge into a commensurate FM resonance whose energy scales linearly with magnetic field [16], whereas in UPd 2 Al 3 the energy gap initially remains almost constant inside the superconducting phase, but starts following a monotonic linear dependence at higher magnetic fields [14]. The sharp resonance in CeCoIn 5 splits into a Zeeman doublet [11] rather than a theoretically predicted triplet [21], whereas in Ce 1−x La x B 6 the magnetic field reportedly leads to a crossover from an itinerant to ...