Electronic structure of f-electron intermetallic compounds studied by positrons

The electronic structure of isostructural rare-earth intermetallic compounds TmGa3, ErGa3, and CeIn3 has recently been studied by measurements of two-dimensional angular correlations of annihilation radiation (2D ACAR) spectra. On the example of these systems we show what kind of information can be exploited from such spectra, i.e. from line projections of the electron-positron (e-p) momentum density ?(p). By applying various tomographic techniques, we check how these algorithms can affect reconstructed 3D momentum densities and Fermi surfaces (FS). We confirm that for all these systems in the paramagnetic phase the f-electrons are fully localized and their FS's are similar. TmGa3 and ErGa3 exhibit the FS nesting feature, in agreement with their magnetic structure, which is not a case in CeIn3.