Subextensive Scaling in the Athermal, Quasistatic Limit of Amorphous Matter in Plastic Shear Flow

Abstract

We present results on numerical simulations of an atomistic system undergoing plastic shear flow in the athermal, quasistatic limit. The system is shown to undergo cascades of local rearrangements, associated with quadrupolar energy fluctuations, which induce system-spanning events organized into lines of slip oriented along the Bravais axes of the simulation cell. A finite size scaling analysis reveals subextensive scaling of the energy drops and participation numbers, linear in the length of the simulation cell, in agreement with the observed real-space structure of the plastic events.