title: Correlation between rearrangements and soft modes in polymer glasses during deformation and recovery.
abstract: We explore the link between soft vibrational modes and local relaxation events in polymer glasses during physical aging, active deformation at constant strain rate, and subsequent recovery. A softness field is constructed out of the superposition of the amplitudes of the lowest energy normal modes, and found to predict up to 70% of the rearrangements. Overlap between softness and rearrangements increases logarithmically during aging and recovery phases as energy barriers rise due to physical aging, while yielding rapidly rejuvenates the overlap to that of a freshly prepared glass. In the strain hardening regime, correlations rise for uniaxial tensile deformation but not for simple shear. These trends can be explained by considering the differing degrees of localization of the soft modes in the two deformation protocols.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of British Columbia, 6224 Agricultural Road, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z1.
authors.forename: Anton
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Smessaert
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of British Columbia, 6224 Agricultural Road, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z1.
authors.forename: Jörg
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rottler