Fluidic hysterons and memory in flow networks
Hysterons provide a minimal description of memory in driven matter: bistable elements with distinct switching thresholds whose interactions generate hysteresis, avalanches, and return point memory or its violation. Experimental realizations have so far been dominated by solid state mechanical systems, where bistability is usually encoded structurally through buckling, snap through, or geometric incompatibility. Here we realize hysteron physics through a hydrodynamic route. A single elastic fiber anchored in a microfluidic channel becomes bistable through nonlinear elastohydrodynamic feedback: viscous loading deforms the fiber, deformation reshapes hydraulic resistance, and flow redistribution modifies the loading. This feedback produces a fluidic hysteron whose onset is organized by a cusp catastrophe in geometric control parameters. A parallel bypass channel acts as a geometric load line that reshapes, and can even eliminate, bistability while simultaneously mediating long ranged hydraulic interactions between fibers. In arrays, varying a single geometric parameter drives a transition from a non interacting Preisach regime with return point memory to an interacting regime with avalanche like switching and return point memory violation. These results establish a passive hydrodynamic route to hysteron networks, in which memory emerges from flow structure feedback and global hydraulic constraints rather than solid state multistability or external control.