Inelastic Neutron Scattering Study to Investigate Giant Crystal-Electric-Field and Intermultiplet Splitting in CeRh3Si2

The orthorhombic CeRh3Si2 has been reported to exhibits multiple magnetic phase transitions. The zero-field heat capacity shows an antiferromagnetic order of the cerium magnetic moments at TN = 4.70 K and spin rearrangement at TSR = 4.48 K. In an applied field between 0.3 and 0.6 T it reveals three phase transitions below 4.8 K. Further the single crystal susceptibility exhibits strong anisotropy that has been explained by a giant crystal field splitting of the order of the intermultiplet splitting J=5/2 to J=7/2 which is usually of the order of 280 meV. There are very few Ce-based compounds exhibiting giant CEF splitting. We therefore propose an inelastic neutron scattering experiment on CeRh3Si2 using MERLIN in order to characterize the crystal-electric field (CEF) potential of the cerium ions and compare it to the already existing data of CeRh3B2.