Magnetic hysteresis in the Cu-Al-Mn intermetallic alloy:: Experiments and modeling

We study isothermal magnetization processes in the Cu-Al-Mn intermetallic alloy. Hysteresis is observed at temperatures below the spin-freezing of the system. The characteristics of the hysteresis cycles as a function of temperature and Mn content (magnetic element) are obtained. At low temperature (less than or similar to 5 K) a change from smooth to sharp cycles is observed with increasing Mn content, which is related to the decrease of configurational disorder. We also study a zero-temperature site-diluted Ising model, suitable for the description of this Cu-Al-Mn system. The model reproduces the main features of the hysteresis loops observed experimentally. It exhibits a disorder-induced critical line separating a disordered phase from an incipient ferromagnetic ground state. The comparison between the model and the experiments allows us to conclude that the observed change in the experimental hysteresis loops can be understood within the framework of the theory of disorder-induced criticality in fluctuationless first-order phase transitions. [S0163-1829(99)13821-9].