Collective stochastic resonance in shear-induced melting of sliding bilayers

TL;DR

This study investigates how two driven crystalline monolayers exhibit stochastic resonance between solid and fluid phases, revealing complex dynamics influenced by interlayer coupling and drive, with potential experimental implications.

Contribution

It introduces a reduced model explaining the stochastic resonance phenomenon in shear-induced melting of bilayers, linking collective order parameters to phase alternations.

Findings

Identification of a dynamical phase diagram for the system

Observation of stochastic resonance between phases

Proposal for experimental verification

Abstract

The far-from-equilibrium dynamics of two crystalline two-dimensional monolayers driven past each other is studied using Brownian dynamics simulations. While at very high and low driving rates the layers slide past one another retaining their crystalline order, for intermediate range of drives the system alternates irregularly between the crystalline and fluid-like phases. A dynamical phase diagram in the space of interlayer coupling and drive is obtained. A qualitative understanding of this stochastic alternation between the liquid-like and crystalline phases is proposed in terms of a reduced model within which it can be understood as a stochastic resonance for the dynamics of collective order parameter variables. This remarkable example of stochastic resonance in a spatially extended system should be seen in experiments which we propose in the paper.