Motivated by recent discovery of canted ferromagnetism in Tsai-type approximants Au-Si-RE (RE = Tb, Dy, Ho), we propose a phenomenological magnetic model reproducing their magnetic structure and thermodynamic quantities. In the model, cubic symmetry ($m\bar{ 3}$) of the approximately-regular icosahedra plays a key role in the peculiar magnetic structure determined by a neutron diffraction experiment. Our magnetic model does not only explain magnetic behaviors in the quasicrystal approximants, but also provides a good starting point for the possibility of coexistence between magnetic long-range order and aperiodicity in quasicrystals.
Categories: cond-mat.str-el