Anomalous Stress Fluctuations in Athermal Two Dimensional Amorphous Solids

Abstract: We numerically study the local stress distribution within athermal, isotropically stressed, mechanically stable, packings of bidisperse frictionless disks above the jamming transition in two dimensions. Considering the Fourier transform of the local stress, we find evidence for algebraically increasing fluctuations in both isotropic and anisotropic components of the stress tensor at small wavenumbers, contrary to recent theoretical predictions. Such increasing fluctuations imply a lack of self-averaging of the stress on large length scales. The crossover to these increasing fluctuations defines a length scale $\ell_0$, however it appears that $\ell_0$ does not vary much with packing fraction $\phi$, nor does $\ell_0$ seem to be diverging as $\phi$ approaches the jamming $\phi_J$. We also find similar large length scale fluctuations of stress in the inherent states of a quenched Lennard-Jones liquid, leading us to speculate that such fluctuations may be a general property of amorphous solids in two dimensions.