A central goal of condensed matter is to understand the response of materials to external driving. While in some cases the response can be captured by bulk parameters, e.g., elastic moduli, the nonlinear response of a wide range of complex, frustrated materials - granular media, disordered magnets, soft glasses - escape such an approach. Frustration prevents relaxation to equilibrium, and these materials are stuck in one of many minima in a rough energy landscape.  When the driving overcomes the shallow barriers, the ensuing nonlinear response consists of smooth reversible stretches punctuated by irreversible hopping between the different mesostates: we refer to this sequence of steps as a pathway.

Here I discuss our current work in probing, understanding and designing such pathways in crumpled sheets, models of so-called hysterons, and mechanical metamaterials.

Pre-act by Vitaly Fedoseev: "Stimulated Raman adiabatic passage in optomechanics”.

Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85449906697?pwd=bEMzVVFkMU1yWEdkUEtVMStkQ1dPQT09

Meeting ID: 854 4990 6697

Passcode: 822762