Asymmetric velocity correlations in shearing media

Abstract

A model of soft frictionless disks in two dimensions at zero temperature is simulated with a shearing dynamics to study various kinds of asymmetries in sheared systems. We examine both single particle properties, the spatial velocity correlation function, and a correlation function designed to separate clockwise and counter-clockwise rotational fields from one another. Among the rich and interesting behaviors we find that the velocity correlation along the two different diagonals corresponding to compression and dilation, respectively, are almost identical and, furthermore, that a feature in one of the correlation functions is directly related to irreversible plastic events.