Elasto-plasticity Mediates Avalanche Dynamics in Supercooled Liquids Below the Mode-Coupling Temperature*

Athermal glasses under quasi-static shear respond elastically to local yield events. The resulting strain field can trigger additional rearrangements, resulting in an avalanche of yield events, as encapsulated in elasto-plastic models [1]. Similar avalanche dynamics have been observed in simulations of deeply supercooled liquids. In this talk, we show that this scenario of elastically-triggered avalanches applies to the dynamics of a model two-dimensional supercooled liquid below the mode-coupling temperature. As the temperature is increased past the mode-coupling temperature, this elastic signature vanishes, suggesting a transition to a different avalanche dynamics at higher temperatures.

[1] Nicolas et al., Rev. Mod. Phys. 90, 045006 (2018).