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Athermal creep deformation of ultrastable amorphous solids
by Pinaki Chaudhuri, Ludovic Berthier, Misaki Ozawa
Submission summary
| Authors (as registered SciPost users): | Ludovic Berthier · Pinaki Chaudhuri |
| Submission information | |
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| Preprint Link: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.17952v2 (pdf) |
| Date accepted: | Aug. 25, 2025 |
| Date submitted: | Aug. 4, 2025, 5:48 a.m. |
| Submitted by: | Pinaki Chaudhuri |
| Submitted to: | SciPost Physics |
| Ontological classification | |
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| Academic field: | Physics |
| Specialties: |
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| Approaches: | Theoretical, Computational |
Abstract
We numerically investigate the athermal creep deformation of amorphous materials having a wide range of stability. The imposed shear stress serves as the control parameter, allowing us to examine the time-dependent transient response through both the macroscopic strain and microscopic observables. Least stable samples exhibit monotonicity in the transient strain rate versus time, while more stable samples display a pronounced non-monotonic S-shaped curve, corresponding to failure by sharp shear band formation. We identify a diverging timescale associated with the fluidization process and extract the corresponding critical exponents. Our results are compared with predictions from existing scaling theories relevant to soft matter systems. The numerical findings for stable, brittle-like materials represent a challenge for theoretical descriptions. We monitor the microscopic initiation of shear bands during creep responses. Our study encompasses creep deformation across a variety of materials ranging from ductile soft matter to brittle metallic and oxide glasses, all within the same numerical framework.
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Author comments upon resubmission
List of changes
i) In sub-section III A, we have added the text "Initially, after the shear stress is imposed, $\dot \gamma(t)$ increases linearly with time because we use a first-order barostat in Eq.~(\ref{eq:barostat}) formulated in terms of the strain rate; this early deformation regime is same for all the annealing histories".
ii) In sub-section III A, we have added the text "We observe that after this initial power-law decay, there is a crossover to a faster decay at longer times as the system approached dynamical arrest or jamming. The mechanism behind this ultimate cut-off is still under debate, with proposed explanations including structural aging and the relaxation of residual stresses".
iii) In sub-section III B, we have added the text "We note that determining $\tau_{ss}$ becomes increasingly challenging as the applied stress approaches the threshold stress, because sample-to-sample fluctuations grow dramatically (data not shown). This difficulty is further enhanced for samples with higher initial stability".
Published as SciPost Phys. 19, 092 (2025)