Related papers: Elastically driven, intermittent microscopic dynam…
In equilibrium, the physical properties of matter are set by the interactions between the constituents. In contrast, the energy input of the individual components controls the behavior of synthetic or living active matter. Great progress…
The relaxation dynamics of many disordered systems, such as structural glasses, proteins, granular materials or spin glasses, is not completely frozen even at very low temperatures. This residual motion leads to a change of the properties…
We use numerical simulations to study the dynamics of dense assemblies of self-propelled particles in the limit of extremely large, but finite, persistence times. In this limit, the system evolves intermittently between mechanical…
We study by light microscopy a soft glass consisting of a compact arrangement of polydisperse elastic spheres. We show that its slow and non-stationary dynamics results from the unavoidable small fluctuations of temperature, which induce…
We investigate by rheology and light scattering the influence of the elastic modulus, $G_0$, on the slow dynamics and the aging of a soft glass. We show that the slow dynamics and the aging can be entirely described by the evolution of an…
The coefficient of static friction between solids generally depends on the time they have remained in static contact before the measurement. Such frictional aging is at the origin of the difference between static and dynamic friction…
We use large-scale computer simulations to explore the non-equilibrium aging dynamics in a microscopic model for colloidal gels. We find that gelation resulting from a kinetically-arrested phase separation is accompanied by `anomalous'…
Understanding and controlling physical aging, i.e. the spontaneous temporal evolution of out-of-equilibrium systems, represents one of the greatest tasks in material science. Recent studies have revealed the existence of a complex atomic…
Complex systems having metastable elements often demonstrate nearly log-time relaxations and a kind of aging: repeated stimuli weaken the system's relaxational response. Granular matter is known to exhibit a wealth of such behaviors, for…
Statically indeterminate systems are experimentally demonstrated to be in fact dynamical at the microscopic scale. Take the classic ladder-wall problem, for instance. Depending on the Young's modulus of the wall, it may take up to twenty…
We study the nonequilibrium aging dynamics in a system of quasi-hard spheres at large density by means of computer simulations. We find that, after a sudden quench to large density, the relaxation time initially increases exponentially with…
What characterises a solid is its way to respond to external stresses. Ordered solids, such crystals, display an elastic regime followed by a plastic one, both well understood microscopically in terms of lattice distortion and dislocations.…
We examine the structural relaxation of glassy materials at finite temperatures, considering the effect of activated rearrangements and long-range elastic interactions. Our three-dimensional mesoscopic relaxation model shows how the…
The aging dynamics of a colloidal glass has been studied by multiangle Dynamic Light Scattering, Neutron Spin Echo, X-ray Photon Correlation Spectroscopy and Molecular Dynamics simulations. The two relaxation processes, microscopic (fast)…
Disordered materials under an imposed forcing can display creep and aging effects, accompanied by intermittent, spatially heterogeneous dynamics. We propose a unifying microscopic description of these phenomena, based on the notion that as…
A theoretical treatment of deeply supercooled liquids is difficult because their properties emerge from spatial inhomogeneities that are self-induced, transient, and nanoscopic. I use computer simulations to analyse self-induced static and…
A simple, non-disordered spin model has been studied in an effort to understand the origin of the precipitous slowing down of dynamics observed in supercooled liquids approaching the glass transition. A combination of Monte Carlo…
We review an scenario for the non-equilibrium dynamics of glassy systems that has been motivated by the exact solution of simple models. This approach allows one to set on firmer grounds well-known phenomenological theories. The old ideas…
We test a hypothesis for the origin of dynamical heterogeneity in slowly relaxing systems, namely that it emerges from soft (Goldstone) modes associated with a broken continuous symmetry under time reparametrizations. We do this by…
The mechanical response of naturally abundant amorphous solids such as gels, jammed grains, and biological tissues are not described by the conventional paradigm of broken symmetry that defines crystalline elasticity. In contrast, the…