Anomalous temperature dependence of elastic moduli of CeRhSn

Abstract We report anomalous temperature T dependence of elastic stiffness of single-crystalline CeRhSn. All elastic moduli measured show the characteristic T-dependence of the crystal electric field (CEF) effect on the elasticity. From the analysis assuming the strain–quadrupole coupling, we propose the CEF splitting level scheme of the 4f1 state. Especially in longitudinal C33, the theoretical fit deviates from the experimental data below 50 K, strongly suggesting that in CeRhSn the CEF state coexists with the Kondo effect with T K ∼50 K .