Related papers: Elastically driven, intermittent microscopic dynam…
Spatial heterogeneity in the elastic properties of soft random solids is investigated via a two-pronged approach. First, a nonlocal phenomenological model for the elastic free energy is examined. This features a quenched random kernel,…
The shear response of soft solids can be modeled with linear elasticity, provided the forcing is slow and weak. Both of these approximations must break down when the material loses rigidity, such as in foams and emulsions at their…
Understanding surface mechanics of soft solids, such as soft polymeric gels, is crucial in many engineering processes, such as dynamic wetting and adhesive failure. In these situations, a combination of capillary and elastic forces drives…
The dynamics of sharp interfaces separating two non-hydrostatically stressed solids is analyzed using the idea that the rate of mass transport across the interface is proportional to the thermodynamic potential difference across the…
At time $t$ after an initial quench, an aging system responds to a perturbation turned on at time $ t_{\rm w} < t$ in a way mainly depending on the number of intermittent energy fluctuations, so-called quakes, which fall within the…
We investigate dynamical heterogeneities in the collective relaxation of a concentrated microgel system, for which the packing fraction can be conveniently varied by changing the temperature. The packing fraction dependent mechanical…
Using very long molecular dynamics simulation runs, temperature protocols spanning up to five orders of magnitude in time-scales are performed to investigate thermally activated structural relaxation in a model amorphous solid. The…
We perform Brownian dynamics simulations of semiflexible colloidal sheets with hydrodynamic interactions and thermal fluctuations in shear flow. As a function of the ratio of bending rigidity to shear energy (a dimensionless quantity we…
The adsorption dynamics of a colloidal particle at a fluid interface is studied theoretically and numerically, documenting distinctly different relaxation regimes. The adsorption of a perfectly smooth particle is characterized by a fast…
We numerically analyze the statistics of the heat flow between an aging system and its thermal bath, following a method proposed and tested for a spin-glass model in a recent Letter (P. Sibani and H.J. Jensen, Europhys. Lett.69, 563…
The dynamic fragmentation of residually stressed solids involves a complex interplay between stored elastic energy, stress wave propagation, and crack instabilities. In this work, we investigate the fracture mechanics of chemically…
Experiments performed in the last years demonstrated slow relaxations and aging in the conductance of a large variety of materials. Here, we present experimental and theoretical results for conductance relaxation and aging for the…
We perform molecular dynamic (MD) simulations of frictional non-thermal particles driven by an externally applied shear stress. After the system jams following a transient flow, we probe its mechanical response in order to clarify whether…
Over times shorter than that required for relaxation of enthalpy, a liquid can exhibit striking heterogeneities. The picture of these heterogeneities is complex with transient patches of rigidity, irregular yet persistent, intersected by…
The slow flow of amorphous solids exhibits striking heterogeneities: swift localised particle rearrangements take place in the midst of a more or less homogeneously deforming medium. Recently, experimental as well as numerical work has…
We propose a dynamical theory of low-temperature shear deformation in amorphous solids. Our analysis is based on molecular-dynamics simulations of a two-dimensional, two-component noncrystalline system. These numerical simulations reveal…
In the past few years systems with slow dynamics have attracted considerable theoretical and experimental interest. Ageing phenomena are observed during this ever-lasting non-equilibrium evolution. A simple instance of such a behaviour is…
The autocorrelation function of pattern fluctuation is used to study soft-mode turbulence (SMT), a spatiotemporal chaos observed in homeotropic nematics. We show that relaxation near the electroconvection threshold deviates from the…
Elasto-plastic models are among the most successful ways to study the critical properties of the plastic yielding transition of amorphous solids. Typically these models are studied under a condition of constant transition rates from one…
Unlike macroscopic multistable mechanical systems such as snap bracelets or elastic shells that must be physically manipulated into various conformations, microscopic systems can undergo spontaneous conformation switching between…