CHANGE OF TIME! Joint ICTP/SISSA Statistical Physics Seminar by François Landes

[Sarnataro Erica]

JOINT ICTP/SISSA STATISTICAL PHYSICS SEMINAR


Friday, November 28th - *3:00 pm*.

SISSA, Cinema room - 1st floor


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Speaker:  François Landes (ICTP)

Title: Viscoelastic Interfaces Driven in Disordered Media & Applications 
to Friction

Abstract: Many complex systems respond to a continuous input of energy 
by an accumulation of stress over time, interrupted by sudden energy 
releases called avalanches. Recently, it has been pointed out that 
several basic features of avalanche dynamics are induced at the 
microscopic level by relaxation processes, which are neglected by most 
models. We have studied a minimal modification of a well-known model of 
avalanche dynamics, in which we take into account the presence of 
"relaxation processes". Precisely, we study a viscoelastic interface 
driven in a disordered medium.

In mean-field, we prove that our model interface has a periodic behavior 
(with a new, emerging time scale), with avalanche events that span the 
whole system. We compute semi-analytically the friction force acting on 
this surface, and find that it is compatible with classical friction 
experiments.

In finite dimensions (2D), the mean-field system-sized events become 
local, and numerical simulations give qualitative and quantitative 
results in good agreement with several important features of real 
earthquakes.