Instabilities of an elastic chain in a random potential

Henrik Jensen , Yves Brechet , Benoît Douçot

We investigate a one dimensional elastic system in a random potential. The response of the elastic medium to a set of sharp and dense pinning centers is shown to be controlled by non linear instabilities. We study the onset of these instabilities and their statistics. Both the distribution of energy discontinuities and the power spectrum of the pinning force are found to exhibit a power law behavior. The possible relevance of this model to some experiments on solid friction is briefly discussed.

Domaines: Articles anciens

Henrik Jensen, Yves Brechet, Benoît Douçot. Instabilities of an elastic chain in a random potential. Journal de Physique I, 1993, 3 (2), pp.611-623. ⟨10.1051/jp1:1993152⟩. ⟨jpa-00246746⟩