Absence of a bulk thermodynamic phase transition to a density wave phase in UTe₂

Superconductors often host multiple competing and intertwined orders, such as spin and charge density waves. Recent scanning tunneling microscopy measurements suggest that the heavy-fermion superconductor UTe₂ has both Cooper pair and charge density waves (PDWs and CDWs, respectively). Using high-resolution resonant ultrasound spectroscopy, we find here no evidence for a thermodynamic phase transition to a bulk CDW state, also ruling out a bulk PDW. These measurements highlight the need to distinguish between bulk and surface physics in UTe₂.