Anomalous softness in amorphous matter in the reversible plastic regime

Abstract: We study an integer automaton elasto-plastic model of an amorphous solid subject to cyclic shear of amplitude $\Gamma$. We focus on the reversible plastic regime at intermediate $\Gamma_0<\Gamma<\Gamma_y$, where, after a transient, the system settles into a periodic limit cycle with hysteretic, dissipative plastic events which repeat after an integer number of cycles. We study the plastic strain rate, $\frac{d\epsilon}{d\gamma}$, (where $\gamma$ is the applied strain and $\epsilon$ is the plastic strain) during the terminal limit cycles and show that it consists of a creeping regime at low $\gamma$ with very low $\frac{d\epsilon}{d\gamma}$ followed by a sharp transition at a characteristic strain, $\gamma_$, and stress, $\sigma_$, to a flowing regime with higher $\frac{d\epsilon}{d\gamma}$. We show that while increasing $\Gamma$ above $\Gamma_0$ results in lower terminal ground state energy, $U_{\text{min}}$, and a correspondingly narrower distribution of stresses, it, surprisingly, results in lower $\gamma_$, and $\sigma_$. The stress distribution, $P(\sigma)$, also becomes skewed for $\Gamma>\Gamma_0$. That is, the systems in the RPR are anomalously soft and mechanically polarized. We relate this to an emergent characteristic feature in the stress distribution, $P(\sigma)$, at a value, $\sigma_0$, which is independent of $\Gamma$ and show that $\sigma_0$ implies a relation between the $\Gamma$ dependence of $\sigma_$, $\gamma_$, and the amplitude of plastic strain, $\epsilon_p$. We show that the onset of hysteresis is characterized by a power-law scaling, indicative of a second order transition with $\epsilon_p\propto (\Gamma-\Gamma_0)^{1.2\pm0.1}$. We argue that $\sigma_0$ and, correspondingly, the onset of the RPR at $\Gamma=\Gamma_0$, is simply set by the so-called Eshelby-stress. Furthermore, we show that cycling at $\Gamma_0$ results in a maximally hardened state.