Self-diffusion in plastic flow of amorphous solids.

Abstract

We report on a particle-based numerical study of sheared amorphous solids in the dense slow flow regime. In this framework, deformation and flow are accompanied by critical fluctuation patterns associated with the macroscopic plastic response. The former is commonly attributed to the collective slip patterns that relax internal stresses within the bulk material and give rise to an effective mechanical noise governing the latter particle-level process. In this paper, the avalanche-type dynamics between plastic events is shown to have a strong relevance on the self-diffusion of tracer particles in the Fickian regime. As a consequence, strong size effects emerge in the effective diffusion coefficient that is rationalized in terms of avalanche size distributions and the relevant temporal occurrence.