Shear yielding and shear jamming of dense hard sphere glasses

TL;DR

This paper analytically studies how dense hard sphere glasses respond to shear strain, revealing the conditions under which they yield or jam, and identifying a critical point where these behaviors converge.

Contribution

It provides a mean field analytical phase diagram for shear yielding and jamming in dense hard sphere glasses, highlighting the interplay between these phenomena.

Findings

Glass yields at finite shear strain near the transition.

At higher densities, glasses jam at finite shear strain, preventing yielding.

A critical point where shear yielding and jamming lines merge.

Abstract

We investigate the response of dense hard sphere glasses to a shear strain, in a wide range of pressures ranging from the glass transition to the infinite-pressure jamming point. The phase diagram in the density-shear strain plane is calculated analytically using the mean field infinite dimensional solution. We find that just above the glass transition, the glass generically yields at a finite shear strain. The yielding transition, in the mean field picture, is a spinodal point in presence of disorder. At higher densities, instead, we find that the glass generically jams at a finite shear strain: the jamming transition prevents yielding. The shear yielding and shear jamming lines merge in a critical point, close to which the system yields at extremely large shear stress. Around this point, a highly non-trivial yielding dynamics characterized by system-spanning disordered fractures is expected.