In a wide range of physical systems, the presence of structural disorder, either quenched or evolving on large time scales, leads to a complex physical behavior when submitted to a driving force. Such systems include elastic lines evolving in a disordered energy landscape, simultaneously pinned by their surrounding disorder and pulled at by an external driving force (for example magnetic domain walls in presence of a magnetic field) and soft materials under an external shear rate (gels, foams, granular materials, ...).

The goal of this reunion is to promote exchanges between the scientists of different communities (depinning, rheology and mechanical response of amorphous systems) and to compare their different approaches. Is there a place for similar concepts in the different types of forced disordered systems? The focus will be on methods stemming from statistical physics (multi-scale methods, bridging of micro-macro descriptions, study of fluctuations…), both from a theoretical and an experimental point of view.

Elisabeth Agoritsas, Jean-Louis Barrat, Eric Bertin, Ezequiel Ferrero and Kirsten Martens

When and where