Glassy dynamics and flow properties of soft colloidal pastes

The local dynamics and the nonlinear rheology of soft colloidal pastes are shown to exhibit a remarkable universal behavior in terms of a unique microscopic time scale. This variable is associated with structural relaxation under the combined action of local frictional forces and elastic driving forces. These results establish a link between the local dynamics of pastes and their nonlinear flow behavior and provide a unified description of paste rheology.