On the equivalence between the Barkhausen effect and directed Abelian sandpile models

The existence of self-organized criticality in the Barkhausen effect and its analogy with sandpile models is investigated. It is demonstrated that a model recently introduced to describe the dynamics of a domain wall [Cizeau et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 4669 (1997)] belongs to the universality class of undirected Abelian sandpile models. In this way it is shown that the Barhausen effect can be taken as an experimental observation of self-organized critical phenomena.