Anisotropic Elastic Properties of CeRhIn₅

The structure of the quasi two dimensional heavy fermion antiferromagnet CeRhIn$_{5}$ has been investigated as a function of pressure up to 13 GPa using a diamond anvil cell under both hydrostatic and quasihydrostatic conditions at room (T=295 K) and low (T=10 K) temperatures. Complementary resonant ultrasound measurements were performed to obtain the complete elastic moduli. The bulk modulus ($B\approx 78$ GPa) and uniaxial compressibilities ($\kappa_{a}$ $=3.96\times $ $10^{-3}$ GPa$^{-1}$ and $% \kappa_{c}$ $=4.22\times $ $10^{-3}$ GPa$^{-1}$) found from pressure-dependent x-ray diffraction are in good agreement with the ultrasound measurements. Unlike doping on the Rh site where $T_{c}$ increases linearly with the ratio of the tetragonal lattice parameters $c/a,$ no such correlation is observed under pressure; instead, a double peaked structure with a local minimum around 4-5 GPa is observed at both room and low temperatures.