Using a simple scaling law, a unique set of crystal-field parameters for the rare-earth ions R in the R(2)Ti(2)O(7) pyrochlore series is shown to provide a proper description of the crystal-field excitations previously observed by neutron scattering. The two spectroscopic g factors are given for the compounds with doublet ground states, as well as the ground-state wavefunctions for all the compounds.

We report measurements performed on a polycrystalline sample of the pyrochlore compound Nd 2 Sn 2 O 7 . It undergoes a second order magnetic phase transition at T c ≈ 0.91 K to a noncoplanar all-in-all-out magnetic structure of the Nd 3+ magnetic moments. The thermal behavior of the low temperature specific heat fingerprints excitations with linear dispersion in a three-dimensional lattice. The temperature independent spin-lattice relaxation rate measured below T c and the anomalously slow paramagnetic spin dynamics detected up to ≈30T c are suggested to be due to magnetic short-range correlations in unidimensional spin clusters, i.e., spin loops. The observation of a spontaneous field in muon spin relaxation measurements is associated with the absence of a divergence-free field for the ground state of an all-in-all-out pyrochlore magnet as predicted recently.