Optical phonons of Rare-Earth halides in a magnetic field

A theory is developed which explains the observed magnetic field splitting of doubly degenerateE-phonons in Rare Earth Chlorides. It is based on first and second order magnetoelastic interactions. Quantitative calculations are done for CeCl₃ for which the field dependence of the splitting is derived and estimates of the coupling constants are given.Furthermore we propose a mechanism for the observed reduction of the phononlinewidth in a magnetic field.