Size of Plastic Events in Strained Amorphous Solids at Finite Temperatures

We address the system-size dependence of plastic flow events when an amorphous solid is put under a fixed external strain rate at a finite temperature. For small system sizes at low strain rates and low temperatures the magnitude of plastic events grows with the system size. We explain, however, that this must be a finite-size effect; for larger systems there exist two crossover length scales xi(1) and xi(2), the first determined by the elastic time scale and the second by the thermal energy scale. For systems of size L >> xi there must exist (L/xi)(d) uncorrelated plastic events which occur simultaneously. We present a scaling theory that culminates with the dependence of the crossover scales on temperature and strain rate. Finally, we relate these findings to the temperature and size dependence of the stress fluctuations. We comment on the importance of these considerations for theories of elastoplasticity.