Shear yielding and shear jamming of dense hard sphere glasses

Abstract

We investigate the response of dense hard sphere glasses to a shear strain, in a wide range of pressures ranging from the glass transition to the infinite-pressure jamming point. The phase diagram in the density-shear strain plane is calculated analytically using the mean field infinite dimensional solution. We find that just above the glass transition, the glass generically yields at a finite shear strain. The yielding transition, in the mean field picture, is a spinodal point in presence of disorder. At higher densities, instead, we find that the glass generically jams at a finite shear strain: the jamming transition prevents yielding. The shear yielding and shear jamming lines merge in a critical point, close to which the system yields at extremely large shear stress. Around this point, a highly non-trivial yielding dynamics characterized by system-spanning disordered fractures is expected.