The dynamics of unsteady frictional slip pulses

Self-healing slip pulses are major spatiotemporal failure modes of frictional systems, featuring a characteristic size $L(t)$ and a propagation velocity $c_{\rm p}(t)$ ($t$ is time). Here, we develop a theory of slip pulses in realistic rate-and-state dependent frictional systems. We show that slip pulses are intrinsically unsteady objects -- in agreement with previous findings -- yet their dynamical evolution is closely related to their unstable steady-state counterparts. In particular, we show that each point along the time-independent $L^{\mbox{{(0)}}}(\tau_{\rm d})\!-\!c^{\mbox{{(0)}}}_{\rm p}(\tau_{\rm d})$ line, obtained from a family of steady-state pulse solutions parameterized by the driving shear stress $\tau_{\rm d}$, is unstable. Nevertheless, and remarkably, the $c^{\mbox{{(0)}}}_{\rm p}[L^{\mbox{{(0)}}}]$ line is a dynamic attractor such that the unsteady dynamics of slip pulses (when they exist) -- whether growing ($\dot{L}(t)\!>\!0$) or decaying ($\dot{L}(t)\!<\!0$) -- reside on the steady-state line. The unsteady dynamics along the line are controlled by a single slow unstable mode. The slow dynamics of growing pulses, manifested by $\dot{L}(t)/c_{\rm p}(t)\!\ll\!1$, explain the existence of sustained pulses, i.e.~pulses that propagate many times their characteristic size without appreciably changing their properties. Our theoretical picture of unsteady frictional slip pulses is quantitatively supported by large-scale, dynamic boundary-integral method simulations.