  We claim that crystal field (CEF) levels exist in UPd2Al3 in contrary to a
recent claim of Hiess et al. (cond-mat/0411041) and Bernhoeft et al.
(cond-mat/0411042), that there is no experimental evidence for discrete crystal
field levels in this superconducting heavy-fermion antiferromagnet. We claim
that excitations revealed by Krimmel et al. (J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 8 (1996)
1677 in inelastic-neutron-scattering (INS) studies are i) crystal-field
excitations described by us within ii) the 5f3 (U3+) configuration. Moreover,
our 5f3 (U3+) scheme, presented in Physica B 276-278 (2000) 803 and in Czech.
J. Phys. 54 (2004) D295, provides a clear physical explanation for the 1.7 meV
excitation (magnetic exciton) as associated to the removal of the
Kramers-doublet ground state degeneracy in the antiferromagnetic state. The
crystal-field theory completed by strong intra-atomic correlations and
intersite spin-dependent interactions to the Quantum Atomistic Solid State
Theory (QUASST), offers the meV energy scale needed for description of magnetic
and electronic properties of compounds containing open-shell 3d, 4f, 5f atoms.
The derived set of CEF parameters for the U3+ state reproduces both the INS
excitations, temperature dependence of the heat capacity, large uranium
magnetic moment as well as its direction.
  PACS: 71.70.E, 75.10.D
  Keywords: Crystalline Electric Field, Heavy fermion, magnetism, UPd2Al3

Strongly Correlated Electrons