Nonresonant spectral hole burning in a spin glass

Large-amplitude low-frequency magnetic fields are found to burn spectral holes in the response of a 5% Au:Fe spin glass. There is negligible overlap between the degrees of freedom influenced by the highest and lowest frequencies. For sufficiently large fields, selected parts of the sample can be heated above the transition while the rest of the sample remains a spin glass. The return to equilibrium after heating indicates that the slow degrees of freedom are coupled to the thermal bath, but not strongly to each other. All prominent features are modeled by a distribution of independent domains, with the same relaxation time for local response and recovery. 1999