The plastic response of magnetoelastic amorphous solids

We address the cross-effects between mechanical strains and magnetic fields on the plastic response of magnetoelastic amorphous solids. It is well known that plasticity in nonmagnetic amorphous solids under external strain gamma is dominated by the codimension-1 saddle-node bifurcation in which an eigenvalue of the Hessian matrix vanishes at gamma(P) like root gamma(P)-gamma. This square-root singularity determines much of the statistical physics of elasto-plasticity, and in particular that of the stress-strain curves under athermal-quasistatic conditions. In this letter we discuss the much richer physics that can be expected in magnetic amorphous solids. Firstly, magnetic amorphous solids exhibit codimension-2 plastic instabilities, when an external strain and an external magnetic field are applied simultaneously. Secondly, the phase diagrams promise a rich array of new effects that have been barely studied; this opens up a novel and extremely rich research program for magnetoplastic materials. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2012