Yielding and Memory in a Driven Mean-Field Model of Glasses

Glassy systems reveal a wide variety of generic behaviors, which lack a unified theoretical description. Here, we study a mean-field model recently shown to reproduce the universal nonphononic vibrational spectra of glasses under oscillatory driving forces. The driven mean-field model, featuring a disordered Hamiltonian structure, naturally predicts the salient dynamical phenomena in cyclically deformed glasses. Specifically, it features an oscillatory yielding transition characterized by an absorbing-to-diffusive transition in the system’s microscopic trajectories and large-scale hysteresis. The model also reveals dynamic slowing down from both sides of the transition, as well as mechanical and thermal annealing effects that mirror their glass counterparts. Finally, we demonstrate a nonequilibrium ensemble equivalence between the driven postyielding dynamics at fixed quenched disorder and quenched disorder averages of the nondriven system along with memory formation.