Microscopic origin of shear bands in 2D amorphous solids from topological defects

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Bera, Arabinda, Majumdar, Debjyoti, Sirk, Timothy W., Regev, Ido, Zaccone, Alessio
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866918096147578880
author Bera, Arabinda
Majumdar, Debjyoti
Sirk, Timothy W.
Regev, Ido
Zaccone, Alessio
author_facet Bera, Arabinda
Majumdar, Debjyoti
Sirk, Timothy W.
Regev, Ido
Zaccone, Alessio
contents The formation of shear bands in amorphous solids such as glasses has remained an open question in our understanding of condensed matter and amorphous materials. Unlike in crystals, well-defined topological defects such as dislocations have been elusive due to the lack of a periodic ordered background at the atomic level. Recently, topological defects have been identified in the displacement field and in the eigenvectors of amorphous solids. Recent work has suggested that shear bands in amorphous solids coincide with an alignment of vortex-antivortex dipoles, with alternating topological charge +1/-1. Here we numerically confirm this hypothesis by means of well-controlled simulations in 2D. Surprisingly, we show that a chain of topological defects (TDs) pre-exists the shear band and is visible already in the non-affine displacement field of the elastic regime. This chain is activated into a flow band concomitantly with the disappearance and possibly annihilation of a dipole at a distance from the TDs chain. The possible underlying mechanism is reminiscent of a soliton-like rarefaction pulse remotely activated by dipole annihilation as observed in superfluid Bose-Einstein condensates.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_09250
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Microscopic origin of shear bands in 2D amorphous solids from topological defects
Bera, Arabinda
Majumdar, Debjyoti
Sirk, Timothy W.
Regev, Ido
Zaccone, Alessio
Soft Condensed Matter
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Materials Science
Other Condensed Matter
Applied Physics
The formation of shear bands in amorphous solids such as glasses has remained an open question in our understanding of condensed matter and amorphous materials. Unlike in crystals, well-defined topological defects such as dislocations have been elusive due to the lack of a periodic ordered background at the atomic level. Recently, topological defects have been identified in the displacement field and in the eigenvectors of amorphous solids. Recent work has suggested that shear bands in amorphous solids coincide with an alignment of vortex-antivortex dipoles, with alternating topological charge +1/-1. Here we numerically confirm this hypothesis by means of well-controlled simulations in 2D. Surprisingly, we show that a chain of topological defects (TDs) pre-exists the shear band and is visible already in the non-affine displacement field of the elastic regime. This chain is activated into a flow band concomitantly with the disappearance and possibly annihilation of a dipole at a distance from the TDs chain. The possible underlying mechanism is reminiscent of a soliton-like rarefaction pulse remotely activated by dipole annihilation as observed in superfluid Bose-Einstein condensates.
title Microscopic origin of shear bands in 2D amorphous solids from topological defects
topic Soft Condensed Matter
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Materials Science
Other Condensed Matter
Applied Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.09250