  The optical conductivity of the heavy fermions UPd2Al3 and UPt3 has been
measured in the frequency range from 10 GHz to 1.2 THz (0.04 meV to 5 meV) at
temperatures 1 K < T < 300 K. In both compounds a well pronounced pseudogap of
less than a meV develops in the optical response at low temperatures; we relate
this to the antiferromagnetic ordering. From the energy dependence of the
effective electronic mass and scattering rate we derive the energies essential
for the heavy quasiparticle. We find that the enhancement of the mass mainly
occurs below the energy which is related to magnetic correlations between the
local magnetic moments and the itinerant electrons. This implies that the
magnetic order in these compounds is the pre-requisite to the formation of the
heavy quasiparticle and eventually of superconductivity.
