Permanent shear localization in dense disordered materials due to microscopic inertia.

In this work using computer simulations of 3D model of dense disordered solids we show, for the first time, the appearance of shear localization in the stationary flow under homogeneous driving conditions. To rationalize our simulation results we develop a continuum model, that couples the dynamics of the local flow to the evolution of a kinetic temperature field related to the local inertial dynamics. Our model predicts that the coupling of the flow field to this additional destabilizing field appears only as a necessary condition for shear localization, a minimum system size is necessary to accommodate the flow instability. Moreover we show that this size criterion resulting from our continuum description is in quantitative agreement with our particle-based simulation results.