Subextensive Scaling in the Athermal, Quasistatic Limit of Amorphous Matter in Plastic Shear Flow

TL;DR

This paper investigates the behavior of amorphous materials under plastic shear flow in the athermal, quasistatic limit, revealing system-spanning cascades of local rearrangements with subextensive scaling properties.

Contribution

It demonstrates the subextensive scaling of energy drops and participation numbers, linking microscopic rearrangements to macroscopic system size in amorphous solids.

Findings

Energy drops scale linearly with system size

Plastic events form system-spanning lines of slip

Rearrangements involve quadrupolar energy fluctuations

Abstract

We present the results of numerical simulations of an atomistic system undergoing plastic shear flow in the athermal, quasistatic limit. The system is shown to undergo cascades of local rearrangements, associated with quadrupolar energy fluctuations, which induce system-spanning events organized into lines of slip oriented along the Bravais axes of the simulation cell. A finite size scaling analysis reveals subextensive scaling of the energy drops and participation numbers, linear in the length of the simulation cell, in good agreement with the observed real-space structure of the plastic events.