  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
(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 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.
