We briefly introduce the generic framework of Disordered Elastic Systems (DES), giving a short `recipe' of a DES modeling and presenting the quantities of interest in order to probe the static and dynamical disorder-induced properties of such systems. We then focus on a particular low-dimensional DES, namely the one-dimensional interface in short-ranged elasticity and short-ranged quenched disorder. Illustrating different elements given in the introductory sections, we discuss specifically the consequences of the interplay between a finite temperature T>0 and a finite interface width ξ>0 on the static geometrical fluctuations at different lengthscales, and the implications on the quasistatic dynamics.
For disordered elastic manifolds in the ground state (equilibrium) we obtain the critical exponents for the roughness and the correction-to-scaling up to 3-loop order, i.e. third order in $ε=4-d$, where $d$ is the internal dimension $d$. We also give the full 2-point function up to order $ε^{2}$, i.e. at 2-loop order.
We address the effect of disorder geometry on the critical force in disordered elastic systems. We focus on the model system of a long-range elastic line driven in a random landscape. In the collective pinning regime, we compute the critical force perturbatively. Not only our expression for the critical force confirms previous results on its scaling with respect to the microscopic disorder parameters, it also provides its precise dependence on the disorder geometry (represented by the disorder two-point correlation function). Our results are successfully compared to the results of numerical si…
We consider a model of an elastic manifold driven on a disordered energy landscape, with generalized long range elasticity. Varying the form of the elastic kernel by progressively allowing for the existence of zero-modes, the model interpolates smoothly between mean field depinning and finite dimensional yielding. We find that the critical exponents of the model change smoothly in this process. Also, we show that in all cases the Herschel-Buckley exponent of the flowcurve depends on the analytical form of the microscopic pinning potential. This is a compelling indication that within the presen…
Elastic effects in a model of disordered nematic elastomers are numerically investigated in two dimensions. Networks crosslinked in the isotropic phase exhibit unusual soft mechanical response against stretching. It arises from gradual alignment of orientationally correlated regions that are elongated along the director. A sharp crossover to a macroscopically aligned state is obtained on further stretching. The effect of random internal stress is also discussed.
We review in these notes some dynamical properties of interfaces in random media submitted to an external force. We focuss in particular to the response to a very small force (so called creep motion) and discuss various theoretical aspects of this problem. We consider in details in particular the case of a one dimensional interface (domain wall).
We study the effects of bond disorder on triangular and honeycomb lattices where each spring has a probability p to be odd elastic. Using an effective medium theory and numerical simulations, we uncover the behavior of odd moduli in the presence of disorder, which we interpret as a crossover between the affine response of the passive elastic backbone, and a rigidity percolation transition in the odd elastic components. Though oddness is generally robust against disorder even at low p, we find that fine-tuned features of an odd elastic honeycomb lattice are not robust against disorder.
The aging effects of a 'diffusing glass', a single elastic string diffusing in a two-dimensional disordered media assisted by thermal noise are studied by Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. We find for the first time convincing numerical evidence of non-trivial aging effects both in the linear response against transverse force and the associated correlation function. Our results retain some important predictions of the conventional dynamical mean-field theory (MFT) but also reveal remarkable differences from it.
We investigate by exact optimization the geometrical properties of three-dimensional elastic line systems with point disorder and hard-core repulsion. The line 'forests' become entangled due to increasing line wandering as the system height is increased, at fixed line density. There is a transition height at which a cluster of pairwise entangled lines spans the system, transverse to average line orientation. Numerical evidence implies that the phenomenon is in the ordinary percolation universality class.
The energy of an elastic manifold in a random landscape at T=0 is shown numerically to obey a probability distribution that depends on size of the box it is put into. If the extent of the spatial fluctuations of the manifold is much less than that of the system, a cross-over takes place to the Gumbel-distribution of extreme statistics. If they are comparable, the distributions have non-Gaussian, stretched exponential tails. The low-energy and high-energy stretching exponents are roughly independent of the internal dimension and the fluctuation degrees of freedom.
We analyze the harmonic elastic string driven through a continuous random potential above the depinning threshold. The velocity exponent beta = 0.33(2) is calculated. We observe a crossover in the roughness exponent zeta from the critical value 1.26 to the asymptotic (large force) value of 0.5. We calculate directly the velocity correlation function and the corresponding correlation length exponent nu = 1.29(5), which obeys the scaling relation nu = 1/(2-zeta), and agrees with the finite-size-scaling exponent of fluctuations in the critical force. The velocity correlation function is non-unive…
We investigate by exact optimization methods the roughening of two and three-dimensional systems of elastic lines with point disorder and hard-core repulsion with open boundary conditions. In 2d we find logarithmic behavior whereas in 3d simple random walk-like behavior. The line 'forests' become asymptotically completely entangled as the system height is increased at fixed line density due to increasing line wandering.
The local elastic properties of strongly disordered host material are investigated using the theory of correlated random matrices. A significant increase in stiffness is shown in the interfacial region, which thickness depends on the strength of disorder. It is shown that this effect plays a crucial role in nanocomposites, in which interfacial regions are formed around each nanoparticle. The studied interfacial effect can significantly increase the influence of nanoparticles on the macroscopic stiffness of nanocomposites. The obtained thickness of the interfacial region is determined by the he…
Disordered solids exhibit unusual properties of their vibrational states and thermal conductivities. Recent progresses have well established the concept of "elastic heterogeneity", i.e., disordered materials show spatially inhomogeneous elastic moduli. In this study, by using molecular-dynamics simulations, we gradually introduce "disorder" into a numerical system to control its modulus heterogeneity. The system starts from a perfect crystalline state, progressively transforms into an increasingly disordered crystalline state, and finally undergoes structural amorphisation. We monitor independ…
We calculate the effective action for disordered elastic manifolds in the ground state (equilibrium) up to 3-loop order. This yields the renormalization-group $β$-function to third order in $ε=4-d$, in an expansion in the dimension $d$ around the upper critical dimension $d=4$. The calculations are performed using exact RG, and several other techniques, which allow us to resolve consistently the problems associated with the cusp of the renormalized disorder.
We propose an explanation for the quadratic dependence on the momentum $Q$, of the broadening of the acoustic excitation peak recently found in the study of the dynamic structure factor of many real and simulated glasses. We ascribe the observed $Q^2$ law to the spatial fluctuations of the local wavelength of the collective vibrational modes, in turn produced by the dishomegeneity of the inter-particle elastic constants. This explanation is analitically shown to hold for 1-dimensional disordered chains and satisfatorily numerically tested in both 1 and 3 dimensions.
Temperature dependent transport of disordered electronic systems is examined in the presence of strong correlations. In contrast to what is assumed in Fermi liquid approaches, finite temperature behavior in this regime proves largely dominated by inelastic electron-electron scattering. This conclusion is valid in the strong coupling limit, where the disorder, the correlations and the Fermi energy are all comparable, as in many materials near the metal-insulator transition.
Domain walls in magnets, vortex lattices in superconductors, contact lines at depinning, and many other systems can be modelled as an elastic system subject to quenched disorder. Its field theory possesses a well-controlled perturbative expansion around its upper critical dimension. Contrary to standard field theory, the renormalization group flow involves a function, the disorder correlator $Δ(w)$, therefore termed the functional renormalization group (FRG). $Δ(w)$ is a physical observable, the auto-correlation function of the centre of mass of the elastic manifold. In this review, we give a …
The thermally activated creep motion of an elastic interface weakly driven on a disordered landscape is one of the best examples of glassy universal dynamics. Its understanding has evolved over the last 30 years thanks to a fruitful interplay between elegant scaling arguments, sophisticated analytical calculations, efficient optimization algorithms and creative experiments. In this article, starting from the pioneer arguments, we review the main theoretical and experimental results that lead to the current physical picture of the creep regime. In particular, we discuss recent works unveiling t…
We study the finite size fluctuations at the depinning transition for a one-dimensional elastic interface of size $L$ displacing in a disordered medium of transverse size $M=k L^ζ$ with periodic boundary conditions, where $ζ$ is the depinning roughness exponent and $k$ is a finite aspect ratio parameter. We focus on the crossover from the infinitely narrow ($k\to 0$) to the infinitely wide ($k\to \infty$) medium. We find that at the thermodynamic limit both the value of the critical force and the precise behavior of the velocity-force characteristics are {\it unique} and $k$-independent. We al…
While there have been important theoretical advances in understanding the universality classes of interfaces moving in porous media, the developed tools cannot be directly applied to experiments. Here we introduce a method that can identify the universality class from snapshots of the interface profile. We test the method on discrete models whose universality class is well known, and use it to identify the universality class of interfaces obtained in experiments on fluid flow in porous media.
In crystals, molecules thermally vibrate around the periodic lattice sites. Vibrational motions are well understood in terms of phonons, which carry heat and control heat transport. The situation is notably different in disordered solids, where vibrational excitations are not phonons and can be even localized. Recent numerical work has established the concept of elastic heterogeneity: disordered solids show inhomogeneous local mechanical response. Clearly, the heterogeneous nature of elastic properties strongly influences vibrational and thermal properties, and it is expected to be the origin …
We study the uniaxial compressive behavior of disordered colloidal free-standing micropillars composed of a bidisperse mixture of 3 and 6 um polystyrene particles. Mechanical annealing of confined pillars enables variation of the packing fraction across the phase space of colloidal glasses. The measured normalized strengths and elastic moduli of the annealed freestanding micropillars span almost three orders-of-magnitude despite similar plastic morphology governed by shear banding. We measure a robust correlation between ultimate strengths and elastic constants that is invariant to relative hu…
In the recent years, much attention has been devoted to the inhomogeneous nature of the mechanical response at the nano-scale in disordered solids. Clearly, the elastic heterogeneities that have been characterized in this context are expected to strongly impact the nature of the sound waves which, in contrast to the case of perfect crystals, cannot be completely rationalized in terms of phonons. Building on previous work on a toy model showing an amorphisation transition [Mizuno H, Mossa S, Barrat JL (2013) EPL {\bf 104}:56001], we investigate the relationship between sound waves and elastic h…
Many seemingly different macroscopic systems (magnets, ferroelectrics, CDW, vortices,..) can be described as generic disordered elastic systems. Understanding their static and dynamics thus poses challenging problems both from the point of view of fundamental physics and of practical applications. Despite important progress many questions remain open. In particular the temperature has drastic effects on the way these systems respond to an external force. We address here the important question of the thermal effect close to depinning, and whether these effects can be understood in the analogy w…
We study the kinetic roughening of a driven domain wall between spin-up and spin-down domains for a model with non-conserved order parameter and quenched disorder. To understand the scaling behavior of this interface we construct an equation of motion and study it theoretically.
In this thesis I discuss analytical approaches to disordered systems using field theory. Disordered systems are characterized by a random energy landscape due to heterogeneities, which remains fixed on the time scales of the phenomena considered. I focus specifically on elastic interfaces in random media, such as pinned domain walls in ferromagnets containing defects, fluid contact lines on rough surfaces, etc. The goal is to understand static properties (e.g. the roughness) of such systems, and their dynamics in response to an external force. The interface moves in avalanches, triggered at ra…
We report on an extensive study of the elastic scattering time $\tauS$ of matter-waves in optical disordered potentials. Using direct experimental measurements, numerical simulations and comparison with first-order Born approximation based on the knowledge of the disorder properties, we explore the behavior of $\tauS$ over more than three orders of magnitude, spanning from the weak to the strong scattering regime. We study in detail the location of the crossover and, as a main result, we reveal the strong influence of the disorder statistics, especially on the relevance of the widely used Ioff…
Isostatic networks are minimally rigid and therefore have, generically, nonzero elastic moduli. Regular isostatic networks have finite moduli in the limit of large sizes. However, numerical simulations show that all elastic moduli of geometrically disordered isostatic networks go to zero with system size. This holds true for positional as well as for topological disorder. In most cases, elastic moduli decrease as inverse power-laws of system size. On directed isostatic networks, however, of which the square and cubic lattices are particular cases, the decrease of the moduli is exponential with…
We employ a functional renormalization group to study interfaces in the presence of a pinning potential in $d=4-ε$ dimensions. In contrast to a previous approach [D.S. Fisher, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 56}, 1964 (1986)] we use a soft-cutoff scheme. With the method developed here we confirm the value of the roughness exponent $ζ\approx 0.2083 ε$ in order $ε$. Going beyond previous work, we demonstrate that this exponent is universal. In addition, we analyze the generation of higher cumulants in the disorder distribution and the role of temperature as a dangerously irrelevant variable.
Stress and strain fields in a two-dimensional pixelwise disordered system are computed by a Fast Fourier Transform method. The system, a model for a ductile damaged medium, consists of an elastic-perfectly matrix containing void pixels. Its behavior is investigated under equibiaxial or shear loading. We monitor the evolution with loading of plastically deformed zones, and we exhibit a nucleation / growth / coalescence scenario of the latter. Identification of plastic ``clusters'' is eased by using a discrete Green function implementing equilibrium and continuity at the level of one pixel. Obse…
Due to their unique structural and mechanical properties, randomly-crosslinked polymer networks play an important role in many different fields, ranging from cellular biology to industrial processes. In order to elucidate how these properties are controlled by the physical details of the network (\textit{e.g.} chain-length and end-to-end distributions), we generate disordered phantom networks with different crosslinker concentrations $C$ and initial density $ρ_{\rm init}$ and evaluate their elastic properties. We find that the shear modulus computed at the same strand concentration for network…
In this Letter, we study an Anderson-localization-induced quantized transport in disordered Chern insulators (CIs). By investigating the disordered CIs with a step potential, we find that the chiral interface states emerge along the interfaces of the step potential, and the energy range for such quantized transport can be manipulated through the potential strength. Furthermore, numerical simulations on cases with a multi-step potential demonstrate that such chiral state can be spatially shifted by varying the Fermi energy, and the energy window for quantized transport is greatly enlarged. Expe…
The ground state of an elastic interface in a disordered medium undergoes collective jumps upon variation of external parameters. These mesoscopic jumps are called shocks, or static avalanches. Submitting the interface to a parabolic potential centered at $w$, we study the avalanches which occur as $w$ is varied. We are interested in the correlations between the avalanche sizes $S_1$ and $S_2$ occurring at positions $w_1$ and $w_2$. Using the Functional Renormalization Group (FRG), we show that correlations exist for realistic interface models below their upper critical dimension. Notably, the…
Using a dynamic functional renormalization group treatment of driven elastic interfaces in a disordered medium, we investigate several aspects of the creep-type motion induced by external forces below the depinning threshold $f_c$: i) We show that in the experimentally important regime of forces slightly below $f_c$ the velocity obeys an Arrhenius-type law $v\sim\exp[-U(f)/T]$ with an effective energy barrier $U(f)\propto (f_{c}-f)$ vanishing linearly when f approaches the threshold $f_c$. ii) Thermal fluctuations soften the pinning landscape at high temperatures. Determining the corresponding…
We examine here various aspects of the statics and dynamics of disordered elastic systems such as manifolds and periodic systems. Although these objects look very similar and indeed share some underlying physics, periodic systems constitute a class of their own with markedly different properties. We focus on such systems, review the methods allowing to treat them, emphasize the shift of viewpoint compared to the physics of manifolds and discuss their physics in detail. As for the statics, periodicity helps the system to retain a quasi-translational order and to be stable with respect to the pr…
We use two different fully vectorial microscopic models featuring nonresonant and resonant scattering, respectively, to demonstrate the Anderson localization transition for elastic waves in three-dimensional (3D) disordered solids. Critical parameters of the transition determined by finite-time and finite-size scaling analyses suggest that the transition belongs to the 3D orthogonal universality class. Similarities and differences between the elastic-wave and light scattering in strongly disordered media are discussed.
The study explores perpendicular transport through macroscopically inhomogeneous three-dimensional disordered conductors using mesoscopic methods (real-space Green function technique in a two-probe measuring geometry). The nanoscale samples (containing $\sim1000$ atoms) are modeled by a tight-binding Hamiltonian on a simple cubic lattice where disorder is introduced in the on-site potential energy. I compute the transport properties of: disordered metallic junctions formed by concatenating two homogenous samples with different kinds of microscopic disorder, a single strongly disordered interfa…
Roughness of driven elastic interfaces in random media is typically understood to be characterized by a single roughness exponent $ζ$. We show that at the depinning threshold, due to symmetry breaking caused by the direction of the driving force, elastic interfaces with local, long-range and mean-field elasticity exhibit asymmetric roughness. It is manifested as a skewed distribution of the local interface heights, and can be quantified by using detrended fluctuation analysis to compute a spectrum of local, segment-level scaling exponents. The asymmetry is observed as approximately linear depe…
We review the random matrix theory describing elastic scattering through zero-dimensional ballistic cavities (having chaotic classical dynamics) and quasi-one dimensional disordered systems. In zero dimension, general symmetry considerations (flux conservation and time reversal symmetry) are only considered, while the combination law of scatterers put in series is taken into account in quasi-one dimension. Originally developed for calculating the distribution of the electrical conductance of mesoscopic systems, this theory naturally reveals the universal behaviors characterizing elastic scatte…
Extended systems driven through strong disorder are modeled generically using coarse-grained degrees of freedom that interact elastically in the directions parallel to the driving force and that slip along at least one of the directions transverse to the motion. A realization of such a model is a collection of elastic channels with transverse viscous couplings. In the infinite range limit this model has a tricritical point separating a region where the depinning is continuous, in the universality class of elastic depinning, from a region where depinning is hysteretic. Many of the collective tr…
In these proceedings, we discuss why functional renormalization is an essential tool to treat strongly disordered systems. More specifically, we treat elastic manifolds in a disordered environment. These are governed by a disorder distribution, which after a finite renormalization becomes non-analytic, thus overcoming the predictions of the seemingly exact dimensional reduction. We discuss how a renormalizable field theory can be constructed even beyond 2-loop order. We then consider an elastic manifold embedded in N dimensions, and give the exact solution for N to infinity. This is compared t…
We discuss the universal dynamics of elastic interfaces in quenched random media. We focus in the relation between the rough geometry and collective transport properties in driven steady-states. Specially devised numerical algorithms allow us to analyze the equilibrium, creep, and depinning regimes of motion in minimal models. The relevance of our results for understanding domain wall experiments is outlined.
Interfaces moving in a disordered medium exhibit stochastic velocity fluctuations obeying universal scaling relations related to the presence or absence of conservation laws. For fluid invasion of porous media, we show that the fluctuations of the velocity are governed by a geometry-dependent length scale arising from fluid conservation. This result is compared to the statistics resulting from a non-equilibrium (depinning) transition between a moving interface and a stationary, pinned one.
Disordered viscoelastic materials are ubiquitous and exhibit fascinating invariant scaling properties. In a companion article, we have presented comprehensive new results for the critical behavior of the dynamic susceptibility of disordered elastic systems near the onset of rigidity. Here we provide additional details of the derivation of the singular scaling forms of the longitudinal response near both jamming and rigidity percolation. We then discuss global aspects associated with these forms, and make scaling collapse plots for both undamped and overdamped dynamics in both the rigid and flo…
We study the elastic scattering time $τ_\mathrm{s}$ of ultracold atoms propagating in optical disordered potentials in the strong scattering regime, going beyond the recent work of J. Richard \emph{et al.} \textit{Phys. Rev. Lett.} \textbf{122} 100403 (2019). There, we identified the crossover between the weak and the strong scattering regimes by comparing direct measurements and numerical simulations to the first order Born approximation. Here we focus specifically on the strong scattering regime, where the first order Born approximation is not valid anymore and the scattering time is strongl…
We present a subcritical fracture growth model, coupled with the elastic redistribution of the acting mechanical stress along rugous rupture fronts. We show the ability of this model to quantitatively reproduce the intermittent dynamics of cracks propagating along weak disordered interfaces. To this end, we assume that the fracture energy of such interfaces (in the sense of a critical energy release rate) follows a spatially correlated normal distribution. We compare various statistical features from the hence obtained fracture dynamics to that from cracks propagating in sintered polymethylmet…
Temporal fluctuations of the speckle pattern formed upon backscattering of a laser beam from an interface between gold and nonlinear polymer film have been observed as a function of optical power. The instability can be explained by coupling of laser light to surface plasmons and other guided modes, which experience multiple scattering while propagating in the film along the interface. The speckle pattern produced in this process is extremely sensitive to fluctuations of the scattering potential near the interface.
We study the stability and roughness of propagating cracks in heterogeneous brittle two-dimensional elastic materials. We begin by deriving an equation of motion describing the dynamics of such a crack in the framework of Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics, based on the Griffith criterion and the Principle of Local Symmetry. This result allows us to extend the stability analysis of Cotterell and Rice to disordered materials. In the stable regime we find stochastic crack paths. Using tools of statistical physics we obtain the power spectrum of these paths and their probability distribution funct…
The mean free path is an essential characteristic length in disordered systems. In microscopic calculations, it is usually approximated by the classical value of the elastic mean free path. It corresponds to the Boltzmann mean free path when only isotropic scattering is considered, but it is different for anisotropic scattering. In this paper, we work out the corrections to the so called Boltzmann mean free path due to multiple scattering effects on finite size scatterers, in the s-wave approximation, ie. when the elastic mean free path is equivalent to the Boltzmann mean free path. The main r…
We analyze the localized phase of a general model of a directed polymer in the proximity of an interface that separates two solvents. Each monomer unit carries a charge, $ω_n$, that determines the type (attractive or repulsive) and the strength of its interaction with the solvents. In addition, there is a polymer--interface interaction and we want to model the case in which there are impurities $\tildeω_n$, that we call again charges, at the interface. The charges are distributed in an in--homogeneous fashion along the chain and at the interface: more precisely the model we consider is of quen…
The effect of inelastic scattering on quantum tunneling through a rectangular potential barrier, of length $L$, containing randomly distributed impurities, is considered. It is shown that, despite the fact that the inelastic transition probability $\mathcal{T}_{\mathrm{inelastic}}$ is exponentially small, it may be greater than that of the elastic in the out of resonance conditions for some energy interval $\triangle E$ (the energy of the incident particle is far from the spectrum of the random Hamiltonian). The asymptotic of the tunnelling transition probability for various impurity configura…
The effects of weak point-like disorder on periodic systems at their upper critical dimension D_c for disorder are studied. The systems studied range from simple elastic systems with D_c=4 to systems with long range interactions with D_c=2 and systems with D_c=3 such as the vortex lattice with dispersive elastic constants. These problems are studied using the Gaussian Variational method and the Functional Renormalisation Group. In all the cases studied we find a typical ultra-slow loglog(x) growth of the asymptotic displacement correlation function, resulting in nearly perfect translational or…
A convenient way to study phase transitions of finite spins systems of linear size $L$ is to fix boundary conditions that impose the presence of a system-size interface. In this paper, we study the statistical properties of such an interface in a disordered Potts ferromagnet in dimension $d=2$ within Migdal-Kadanoff real space renormalization. We first focus on the interface free-energy and energy to measure the singularities of the average and random contributions, as well as the corresponding histograms, both in the low-temperature phase and at criticality. We then consider the critical beha…
