Driving ferromagnets into a critical region of a magnetic phase diagram

Exciting a ferromagnetic sample with an ultrashort laser pulse leads to a quenching of the magne- tization on a subpicosecond timescale. On the basis of the equilibration of intensive thermodynamic variables we establish a powerful model to describe the demagnetization dynamics. We demonstrate that the magnetization dynamics is mainly driven by the equilibration of chemical potentials. The minimum of magnetization is revealed as a transient electronic equilibrium state. Our method iden- tifies the slowing down of ultrafast magnetization dynamics by a critical region within a magnetic phase diagram.