Theory of an elastic anomaly in the heavy fermion system CeTe

The elastic anomaly observed in the coherent Kondo state of Ce heavy fermion compounds is analyzed by using the Anderson lattice model simulating the energy level scheme of CeTe. The Γ7 doublets and Γ8 quartets of the 4f states are considered in the model. We solve the mean field equations to derive the temperature dependences of elastic constants, using the random phase approximation like expression for the interaction between the elastic strain and the crystalline field splitting. We compare the calculation with the (c11 − c12)/2 and c44 constants of CeTe. The presence of the downward dip and the observed overall temperature variations of the two constants are