Unified phase diagram of reversible-irreversible, jamming, and yielding transitions in cyclically sheared soft-sphere...

Self-organization, and transitions from reversible to irreversible behavior, of interacting particle assemblies driven by externally imposed stresses or deformation is of interest in comprehending diverse phenomena in soft matter. They have been investigated in a wide range of systems, such as colloidal suspensions, glasses, and granular matter. In different density and driving regimes, such behavior is related to yielding of amorphous solids, jamming, memory formation, etc. How these phenomena are related to each other has not, however, been much studied. In order to obtain a unified view of the different regimes of behavior, and transitions between them, we investigate computationally the response of soft-sphere assemblies to athermal cyclic-shear deformation over a wide range of densities and amplitudes of shear deformation. Cyclic-shear deformation induces transitions from reversible to irreversible behavior in both unjammed and jammed soft-sphere packings. Well above the minimum isotropic jamming density ([Formula: see text]), this transition corresponds to yielding. In the vicinity of the jamming point, up to a higher-density limit, we designate [Formula: see text], an unjammed phase emerges between a localized, absorbing phase and a diffusive, irreversible, phase. The emergence of the unjammed phase signals the shifting of the jamming point to higher densities as a result of annealing and opens a window where shear jamming becomes possible for frictionless packings. Below [Formula: see text], two distinct localized states, termed point- and loop-reversible, are observed. We characterize in detail the different regimes and transitions between them and obtain a unified density-shear amplitude phase diagram.