2025/10/29 by Mungan, Muhittin, Clement, Eric, Vandembroucq, Damien +1
#Cell Behavior (q-bio.CB) #Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn) #FOS: Biological sciences #FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2510.25367
Disordered systems subject to a fluctuating environment can self-organize into a complex history-dependent response, retaining a memory of the driving. In sheared amorphous solids, self-organization is established by the emergence of a persistent system of mechanical instabilities that can repeatedly be triggered by the driving, leading to a state of high mechanical reversibility. As a result of self-organization, the response of the system becomes correlated with the dynamics of its environment, which can be viewed as a sensing mechanism of the system's environment. Such phenomena emerge across a wide variety of soft matter systems, suggesting that they are generic and hence may depend very little on the underlying specifics. We review self-organization in driven amorphous solids, concluding with a discussion of what self-organization in driven disordered systems can teach us about how simple organisms sense and adapt to their changing environments.