Scaling theory for steady-state plastic flows in amorphous solids

Abstract

Strongly correlated amorphous solids are a class of glass formers whose interparticle potential admits an approximate inverse power-law form in a relevant range of interparticle distances. We study the steady-state plastic flow of such systems, first in the athermal quasistatic limit and second at finite temperatures and strain rates. In all cases we demonstrate the usefulness of scaling concepts to reduce the data to universal scaling functions where the scaling exponents are determined a priori from the interparticle potential. In particular we show that the steady plastic flow at finite temperatures with efficient heat extraction is uniquely characterized by two scaled variables; equivalently, the steady-state displays an equation of state that relates one scaled variable to the other two. We discuss the range of applicability of the scaling theory, and the connection to density scaling in supercooled liquid dynamics. We explain that the description of transient states calls for additional state variables whose identity is still far from obvious.