Title: Mechanical response in jammed materials: From local structure to control theory

Author (Invited): Erin Teich, Wellesley College

Abstract:

Amorphous and jammed particulate matter constitutes a wide range of natural and synthetic materials. Despite this ubiquity, the way in which these systems disordered microstructure couples to their often subtle and complex mechanical response to external forcing is not yet fully understood, with profound consequences for phenomena ranging from landscape evolution to cellular unjamming during tumor metastasis. In this talk, I will focus on two complementary methods we have used to elucidate the link between microstructure and mechanical response in jammed disordered systems. First, I will discuss previous work in which we explored the relationship between discrete local structure and rearrangement dynamics in jammed materials under oscillatory shear. Next, I will discuss our current efforts to bring linear network control theory to bear on the problem of predicting mechanical response in disordered systems. Our results indicate that node controllability in this context correlates strongly with particle rearrangement under stress, and generally demonstrate that network control theory is a promising mathematical framework for predicting and designing dynamical behavior in disordered media.