We study numerically the yielding transition of a two dimensional model glass subjected to athermal quasi-static cyclic shear deformation, with the aim of investigating the effect on the yielding behaviour of the degree of annealing, which in turn de
pends on the preparation protocol. We find two distinct regimes of annealing separated by a threshold energy. Poorly annealed glasses progressively evolve towards the threshold energy as the strain amplitude is increased towards the yielding value. Well annealed glasses with initial energies below the threshold energy exhibit stable behaviour, with negligible change in energy with increasing strain amplitude, till they yield. Discontinuities in energy and stress at yielding increase with the degree of annealing, consistently with recent results found in three dimensions. We observe significant structural change with strain amplitude that closely mirrors the changes in energy and stresses. We investigate groups of particles that are involved in plastic rearrangements. We analyse the distributions of avalanche sizes, of clusters of connected rearranging particles, and related quantities, employing finite size scaling analysis. We verify previously investigated relations between exponents characterising these distributions, and a newly proposed relation between exponents describing avalanche and cluster size distributions.
We investigate avalanches associated with plastic rearrangements and the nature of structural change in the prototypical strong glass, silica, computationally. Although qualitative aspects of yielding in silica are similar to other glasses, we find t
hat the statistics of avalanches exhibits non-trivial behaviour. Investigating the statistics of avalanches and clusters in detail, we propose and verify a new relation between exponents characterizing the size distribution of avalanches and clusters. Across the yielding transition, anomalous structural change and densification, associated with a suppression of tetrahedral order, is observed to accompany strain localisation.
Yielding behavior in amorphous solids has been investigated in computer simulations employing uniform and cyclic shear deformation. Recent results characterise yielding as a discontinuous transition, with the degree of annealing of glasses being a si
gnificant parameter. Under uniform shear, discontinuous changes in stresses at yielding occur in the high annealing regime, separated from the poor annealing regime in which yielding is gradual. In cyclic shear simulations, relatively poorly annealed glasses become progressively better annealed as the yielding point is approached, with a relatively modest but clear discontinuous change at yielding. To understand better the role of annealing on yielding characteristics, we perform athermal quasistaic cyclic shear simulations of glasses prepared with a wide range of annealing in two qualitatively different systems -- a model of silica (a network glass), and an atomic binary mixture glass. Two strikingly different regimes of behavior emerge: Energies of poorly annealed samples evolve towards a unique threshold energy as the strain amplitude increases, before yielding takes place. Well annealed samples, in contrast, show no significant energy change with strain amplitude till they yield, accompanied by discontinuous energy changes that increase with the degree of annealing. Significantly, the threshold energy for both systems correspond to dynamical crossover temperatures associated with changes in the character of the energy landscape sampled by glass forming liquids. Uniform shear simulations support the recently discussed scenario of a random critical point separating ductile and brittle yielding, which our results now associate with dynamical crossover temperatures in the corresponding liquids.
Both the deterministic and stochastic sandpile models are studied on the percolation backbone, a random fractal, generated on a square lattice in $2$-dimensions. In spite of the underline random structure of the backbone, the deterministic Bak Tang W
iesenfeld (BTW) model preserves its positive time auto-correlation and multifractal behaviour due to its complete toppling balance, whereas the critical properties of the stochastic sandpile model (SSM) still exhibits finite size scaling (FSS) as it exhibits on the regular lattices. Analysing the topography of the avalanches, various scaling relations are developed. While for the SSM, the extended set of critical exponents obtained is found to obey various the scaling relation in terms of the fractal dimension $d_f^B$ of the backbone, whereas the deterministic BTW model, on the other hand, does not. As the critical exponents of the SSM defined on the backbone are related to $d_f^B$, the backbone fractal dimension, they are found to be entirely different from those of the SSM defined on the regular lattice as well as on other deterministic fractals. The SSM on the percolation backbone is found to obey FSS but belongs to a new stochastic universality class.
A dissipative stochastic sandpile model is constructed on one and two dimensional small-world networks with different shortcut densities $phi$ where $phi=0$ and $1$ represent a regular lattice and a random network respectively. In the small-world reg
ime ($2^{-12} le phi le 0.1$), the critical behaviour of the model is explored studying different geometrical properties of the avalanches as a function of avalanche size $s$. For both the dimensions, three regions of $s$, separated by two crossover sizes $s_1$ and $s_2$ ($s_1<s_2$), are identified analyzing the scaling behaviour of average height and area of the toppling surface associated with an avalanche. It is found that avalanches of size $s<s_1$ are compact and follow Manna scaling on the regular lattice whereas the avalanches with size $s>s_1$ are sparse as they are on network and follow mean-field scaling. Coexistence of different scaling forms in the small-world regime leads to violation of usual finite-size scaling, in contrary to the fact that the model follows the same on the regular lattice as well as on the random network independently. Simultaneous appearance of multiple scaling forms are characterized by developing a coexistence scaling theory. As SWN evolves from regular lattice to random network, a crossover from diffusive to super-diffusive nature of sand transport is observed and scaling forms of such crossover is developed and verified.
A two state sandpile model with preferential sand distribution is developed and studied numerically on scale free networks with power-law degree ($k$) distribution, {em i.e.}: $P_ksim k^{-alpha}$. In this model, upon toppling of a critical node sand
grains are given one to each of the neighbouring nodes with highest and lowest degrees instead of two randomly selected neighbouring nodes as in a stochastic sandpile model. The critical behaviour of the model is determined by characterizing various avalanche properties at the steady state varying the network structure from scale free to random, tuning $alpha$ from $2$ to $5$. The model exhibits mean field scaling on the random networks, $alpha>4$. However, in the scale free regime, $2<alpha<4$, the scaling behaviour of the model not only deviates from the mean-field scaling but also the exponents describing the scaling behaviour are found to decrease continuously as $alpha$ decreases. In this regime, the critical exponents of the present model are found to be different from those of the two state stochastic sandpile model on similar networks. The preferential sand distribution thus has non-trivial effects on the sandpile dynamics which leads the model to a new universality class.
A dissipative stochastic sandpile model is constructed and studied on small world networks in one and two dimensions with different shortcut densities $phi$, where $phi=0$ represents regular lattice and $phi=1$ represents random network. The effect o
f dimension, network topology and specific dissipation mode (bulk or boundary) on the the steady state critical properties of non-dissipative and dissipative avalanches along with all avalanches are analyzed. Though the distributions of all avalanches and non-dissipative avalanches display stochastic scaling at $phi=0$ and mean-field scaling at $phi=1$, the dissipative avalanches display non trivial critical properties at $phi=0$ and $1$ in both one and two dimensions. In the small world regime ($2^{-12} le phi le 0.1$), the size distributions of different types of avalanches are found to exhibit more than one power law scaling with different scaling exponents around a crossover toppling size $s_c$. Stochastic scaling is found to occur for $s<s_c$ and the mean-field scaling is found to occur for $s>s_c$. As different scaling forms are found to coexist in a single probability distribution, a coexistence scaling theory on small world network is developed and numerically verified.
In the rotational sandpile model, either the clockwise or the anti-clockwise toppling rule is assigned to all the lattice sites. It has all the features of a stochastic sandpile model but belongs to a different universality class than the Manna class
. A crossover from rotational to Manna universality class is studied by constructing a random rotational sandpile model and assigning randomly clockwise and anti-clockwise rotational toppling rules to the lattice sites. The steady state and the respective critical behaviour of the present model are found to have a strong and continuous dependence on the fraction of the lattice sites having the anti-clockwise (or clockwise) rotational toppling rule. As the anti-clockwise and clockwise toppling rules exist in equal proportions, it is found that the model reproduces critical behaviour of the Manna model. It is then further evidence of the existence of the Manna class, in contradiction with some recent observations of the non-existence of the Manna class.
A dissipative sandpile model (DSM) is constructed and studied on small world networks (SWN). SWNs are generated adding extra links between two arbitrary sites of a two dimensional square lattice with different shortcut densities $phi$. Three differen
t regimes are identified as regular lattice (RL) for $philesssim 2^{-12}$, SWN for $2^{-12}<phi< 0.1$ and random network (RN) for $phige 0.1$. In the RL regime, the sandpile dynamics is characterized by usual Bak, Tang, Weisenfeld (BTW) type correlated scaling whereas in the RN regime it is characterized by the mean field (MF) scaling. On SWN, both the scaling behaviors are found to coexist. Small compact avalanches below certain characteristic size $s_c$ are found to belong to the BTW universality class whereas large, sparse avalanches above $s_c$ are found to belong to the MF universality class. A scaling theory for the coexistence of two scaling forms on SWN is developed and numerically verified. Though finite size scaling (FSS) is not valid for DSM on RL as well as on SWN, it is found to be valid on RN for the same model. FSS on RN is appeared to be an outcome of super diffusive sand transport and uncorrelated toppling waves.
