Shear Yielding and Shear Jamming of Dense Hard Sphere Glasses.

Abstract

We investigate the response of dense hard sphere glasses to a shear strain in a wide range of pressures ranging from the glass transition to the infinite-pressure jamming point. The phase diagram in the density-shear strain plane is calculated analytically using the mean-field infinite-dimensional solution. We find that just above the glass transition, the glass generically yields at a finite shear strain. The yielding transition in the mean-field picture is a spinodal point in presence of disorder. At higher densities, instead, we find that the glass generically jams at a finite shear strain: the jamming transition prevents yielding. The shear yielding and shear jamming lines merge in a critical point, close to which the system yields at extremely large shear stress. Around this point, highly nontrivial yielding dynamics, characterized by system-spanning disordered fractures, is expected.