Quasistatic kinetic avalanches and self-organized criticality in deviatorically loaded granular media

Abstract: The behavior of granular media under quasi-static loading has recently been shown to attain a stable evolution state corresponding to a manifold in the space of micromechanical variables. This state is characterized by sudden transitions between metastable jammed states, involving the partial micromechanical rearrangement of the granular medium. Using numerical simulations of two-dimensional granular media under quasistatic biaxial compression, we show that the dynamics in the stable evolution state is characterized by scale-free avalanches well before the macromechanical stationary flow regime traditionally linked to a self-organized critical state. This, together with the non-uniqueness and the non-monotony of macroscopic deformation curves, suggests that the statistical avalanche properties and the susceptibilities of the system cannot be reduced to a function of the macromechanical state. The associated scaling exponents are non-universal and depend on the interactions between particles. For stiffer particles (or samples at low confining pressure) we find distributions of avalanche properties compatible with the predictions of mean-field theory. The scaling exponents decrease below the mean-field values for softer interactions between particles. These lower exponents are consistent with observations for amorphous solids at their critical point. We specifically discuss the relationship between microscopic and macroscopic variables, including the relation between the external stress drop and the internal potential energy released during kinetic avalanches.