Evidence for a common physical description of non-Fermi-liquid behavior inchemically substituted f-electron systems

The non-Fermi-liquid (NFL) behavior observed in the low temperature specifi c heat C(T) and magnetic susceptibility chi(T) of many chemically substitut ed f-electron systems is analyzed within the context of a recently develope d theory based on Griffiths' singularities. Measurements of C(T) and chi(T) in the systems Th1-xUxPd2Al3, Y1-xUxPd3, and UCu5-xMx (M = Pd, Pt) are fou nd to be consistent with C(T)/T proportional to chi(T) proportional to T-1lambda predicted by this model with lambda < 1 in the NFL regime. These res ults suggest that the NFL properties observed in a wide variety of disorder ed f-electron systems can be described within the context of a common physi cal picture.