SPECIFIC-HEAT AND SUSCEPTIBILITY OF PRNI2

The specific heat of the cubic PrNi2, YNi2 and LuNi2 intermetallic compounds has been measured in magnetic fields up to 11 T in the temperature range 1.6-80 K and in zero field up to room temperature. The comparison of the measured susceptibility data with those of the static crystal field calculation yields an overall agreement but allows no decision with respect to a singlet or doublet ground state. Our specific heat data show that the singlet GAMMA1 is the ground state in PrNi2. The excess specific heat observed below 20 K can be attributed to a broadening of the first excited level.