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Stabilizing stick-slip friction (1104.1950v1)
Published 11 Apr 2011 in cond-mat.soft and cond-mat.mtrl-sci
Abstract: Even the most regular stick-slip frictional sliding is always stochastic, with irregularity in both the intervals between slip events and the sizes of the associated stress drops. Applying small-amplitude oscillations to the shear force, we show, experimentally and theoretically, that the stick-slip periods synchronize. We further show that this phase-locking is related to the inhibition of slow rupture modes which forces a transition to fast rupture, providing a possible mechanism for observed remote triggering of earthquakes. Such manipulation of collective modes may be generally relevant to extended nonlinear systems driven near to criticality.