Title: Comparison of plasticity and intermittency in crystalline and amorphous solids

Organizer(s) / Affiliation(s): S. Papanikolaou, Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Physics, Corey O' Hern, Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Physics

Email:  stefanos.papanikolaou@yale.edu   

Abstract: We propose a mini-symposium that will initiate interactions among researchers that focus on plasticity in crystalline and amorphous solids. For atomic solids, dislocation mechanics controls plastic deformation. In contrast, there is still much debate about the microscale sources of plasticity in amorphous systems, such as granular media, foams, and colloids. For both crystalline and amorphous solids, plasticity occurs via intermittent bursts that display power-law scaling, which suggests universality. This mini-symposium will explore a number of important questions including: What are the defects that mediate plasticity in in amorphous solids? What is the source of intermittency in these systems and how does stress relaxation depend on particle interactions, dimensionality, and dissipation mechanisms? We encourage contributions from experiments, theory, and simulation that work on dislocation dynamics in metals, shear transformation zones in amorphous solids, soft modes in jammed systems, and plasticity in disordered media.