Weak non-linearities of amorphous polymer under creep

The creep behavior of an amorphous poly(etherimide) (PEI) polymer is investigated in the vicinity of its glass transition in a weakly non linear regime where the acceleration of the creep response is driven by local configurational rearrangements. From the time shifts of the creep compliance curves under increasing applied stresses in the range 1-15~\si{\mega\pascal}, we determine a macroscopic acceleration factor. At the start of creep, the stress is homogeneous and the macroscopic acceleration can be assimilated to that of the local rearrangements which is shown to vary as $f=e^{-(\sigma/Y)^n}$ with $n=2 \pm 0.2$, where $\sigma$ is the local stress and $Y$ is a decreasing function of compliance. This experimental result is in agreement with the recent theory of Long \textit{et al.} (\textit{Phys. Rev. Mat.} (2018) \textbf{2}, 105601 ) which predicts $n=2$. From a mean field approximation, we interpret the variation of $Y$ with compliance as the result of the development of stress heterogneities during creep.