Effective collective barrier for magnetic relaxation in frozen ferrofluids

Magnetic relaxation and frequency response were measured in frozen ferrimagnetic colloids of different concentrations. A crossover from reversible to irreversible behavior is observed for concentrated colloids. In irreversible state, magnetic relaxation is time-logarithmic over seven orders of magnitude of experimental time windows. A master curve construction within mean field phenomenological model is applied to extract effective collective barrier as a function of the irreversible magnetization. The barrier logarithmically diverges, providing evidence for self-organized critical behavior during magnetic relaxation in frozen ferrofluids.