Axelle Amon (IPR - Rennes) - Emergence and dynamics of a laboratory seismic fault

Granular materials are amorphous and athermal materials whose mechanical properties are still poorly understood and for which friction and disorder play a fundamental role in the mechanical response. When brought to failure, they share with many other amorphous soft media the characteristic of exhibiting localization of deformation: all deformation is concentrated in shear bands forming slip planes within the material. During my talk I will show how a shear band in a granular medium is a model object for a physicist both to understand the plasticity of amorphous materials and to study the dynamics of earthquakes. In particular, I will present recent results obtained in our group showing that all the empirical laws characterizing the space-time dynamics of earthquakes can be reproduced at the laboratory scale.