arXiv subjects

Long-Zhou Huang

Publications and source records attributed to Long-Zhou Huang.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Spectral Decomposition of Liquid Viscosity into Instantaneous Normal Modes

Viscosity, the resistance of a liquid to flow, is driven by atomic-scale friction but its microscopic origin remains poorly understood. We use a theoretical framework based on nonaffine linear response to decompose the viscosity of metallic and model liquids into contributions from individual instantaneous normal modes (INMs). Our approach reveals excellent agreement with simulations and exposes the specific excitations that govern viscous dynamics. Above the mode-coupling temperature ($T_{\text{MC}}$), viscosity is controlled by unstable localized INMs (ULINMs), which act as precursors for diffusive momentum transport. Below $T_{\text{MC}}$, we find a dynamical crossover where stable modes govern viscosity, a behavior consistent with a transition in the potential energy landscape from saddle-dominated to minima-dominated dynamics. We also propose a quantitative model connecting viscosity with ULINMs in both Arrhenius and non-Arrhenius regimes. This work provides a spectral decomposition of liquid viscosity, identifying the atomic modes responsible for it and opening a path to predict it from elementary excitations.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2025

A geometric approach to predicting plasticity in disordered solids

It was recently shown that vortex-like topological defects with negative winding number in the vibrational modes of a two-dimensional glass under quasistatic shear correlate strongly with plastic events, offering a promising route to predict them. However, many of these vortices, a number that actually grows quadratically with mode frequency, are entirely unrelated to plasticity and arise simply from the underlying plane-wave structure of the modes. This raises doubts about the fundamental relevance of such defects to plastic rearrangements and limits their predictive power. Here, we introduce a geometrical filter based on the Nye dislocation density that, when applied to the vibrational modes, removes these spurious defects and reveals the true plastic precursors. Using simulations of a two-dimensional model glass, we show that this filtered approach consistently outperforms the conventional vortex-based method, particularly at small strains and when focusing on genuine plastic stress drops, offering a more robust tool to predicting plasticity in glasses from their undeformed initial state.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2025

A flat-band perspective on the boson peak in amorphous solids

The boson peak is a characteristic anomaly of amorphous solids broadly defined as a low-energy excess in the density of states and heat capacity compared to the textbook predictions of Debye theory. The origin of this anomaly has long been the subject of ongoing debate and remains a topic of active controversy. We propose that the boson peak may have a defining dynamical feature: the accumulation of vibrational spectral weight within a narrow frequency window that is only weakly dependent on wavevector. In this perspective, the boson peak reflects a flat or weakly dispersive band in the dynamical structure factor rather than a propagating excitation. We revisit both experimental and simulation data from the literature through this lens and conduct further simulations in 2D and 3D amorphous systems. Taken together, these analyses provide compelling converging evidence for this interpretation and sharply constrain the space of viable theoretical descriptions of the boson peak.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2025

Stress-stress correlations in two-dimensional amorphous and crystalline solids

Stress-stress correlations in crystalline solids with long-range order can be straightforwardly derived using elasticity theory. In contrast, the `emergent elasticity' of amorphous solids, rigid materials characterized by an underlying disordered structure, defies direct explanation within traditional theoretical frameworks. To address this challenge, tensor gauge theories have been recently proposed as a promising approach to describe the emergent elasticity of disordered solids and predict their stress-stress correlations. In this work, we revisit this problem in two-dimensional amorphous and crystalline solids by employing a canonical elasticity theory approach, supported by experimental and simulation data. We demonstrate that, with respect to static stress-stress correlations, the response of a 2D disordered solid is indistinguishable from that of a 2D isotropic crystalline solid and it is well predicted by vanilla elasticity theory. Moreover, we show that the presence of pinch-point singularities in the stress response is not an exclusive feature of amorphous solids. Our results confirm previous observations about the universal character of static stress-stress correlations in crystalline and amorphous packings.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2024

Spotting structural defects in crystals from the topology of vibrational modes

Because of the inevitably disordered background, structural defects are not well-defined concepts in amorphous solids. In order to overcome this difficulty, it has been recently proposed that topological defects can be still identified in the pattern of vibrational modes, by looking at the corresponding eigenvector field at low frequency. Moreover, it has been verified that these defects strongly correlate with the location of soft spots in glasses, that are the regions more prone to plastic rearrangements. Here, we show that the topology of vibrational modes predicts the location of structural defects in crystals as well, including the cases of dislocations, disclinations and Eshelby inclusions. Our results suggest that in crystalline solids topological defects in the vibrational modes are directly connected to the well-established structural defects governing plastic deformations and present characteristics very similar to those observed in amorphous solids.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗