Origin of scale-free intermittency in structural first-order phase transitions

Abstract

A salient feature of cyclically driven first-order phase transformations in crystals is their scale-free avalanche dynamics. This behavior has been linked to the presence of a classical critical point but the mechanism leading to criticality without extrinsic tuning remains unexplained. Here we show that the source of scaling in such systems is an annealed disorder associated with transformation-induced slip which co-evolves with the phase transformation, thus ensuring the crossing of a critical manifold. Our conclusions are based on a model where annealed disorder emerges in the form of a random field induced by the phase transition. Such disorder exhibits super-transient chaotic behavior under thermal loading, obeys a heavy-tailed distribution and exhibits long-range spatial correlations. We show that the universality class is affected by the long-range character of elastic interactions. In contrast, it is not influenced by the heavy-tailed distribution and spatial correlations of disorder.

17 pages, 22 figures

References in corpus (8)

• Marginal Stability in Structural, Spin and Electron Glasses
• Criticality in the approach to failure in amorphous solids
• Analysis of power-law exponents by maximum-likelihood maps
• Training-induced criticality in martensites
• Strain intermittency in shape-memory alloys
• Criticality of tuning in athermal phase transitions
• Defect-induced incompatibility of elastic strains: dislocations within the Landau theory of martensitic phase transformations
• Random Field Potts model with dipolar-like interactions: hysteresis, avalanches and microstructure

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Memory formation in matter
• The mechanisms of self-organised criticality in social processes of knowledge creation
• Universality in driven open quantum matter
• Critical Slowing Down at the Abrupt Mott Transition: When the First-Order Phase Transition Becomes Zeroth-Order and Looks Like Second-Order
• Variety of scaling behaviors in nanocrystalline plasticity
• Modelling avalanches in martensites
• Power-law and log-normal avalanche size statistics in random growth processes
• Suppression of spinodal instability by disorder in an athermal system
• Finite-dimensional signature of spinodal instability in an athermal hysteretic transition
• On a probabilistic model for martensitic avalanches incorporating mechanical compatibility
• Reconstructive martensitic phase transitions: intermittency, anti-trasformation, plasticity, irreversibility
• Crystal elasto-plasticity on the Poincaré half-plane