Anomaly in the magnetocaloric effect in the intermetallic compound DYAl2

It is well known that the intermetallic compound DyAl2 is ferromagnetic and exhibits a change in the easy direction of magnetization from [100] to [11 1], for a critical applied magnetic field in the [111] direction. Using a s imple model which includes the crystalline electric field and the exchange interaction we have theoretically investigated its magnetic entropy along t he three main crystallographic directions. An anomalous behavior was theore tically predicted to exist in the magnetic entropy, which consists in the i ncrease of entropy when the magnetic field is applied in the [111] directio n, Comparisons between the theoretically predicted anomaly in DyAl2 with th e recent discovery of a magnetic anomaly in PrNi5 are also presented.