Depinning of a dislocation: the influence of long-range interactions

The theory of the depinning transition of elastic manifolds in random media provides a framework for the statistical dynamics of dislocation systems at yield. We consider the case of a single flexible dislocation gliding through a random stress field generated by a distribution of immobile dislocations threading through its glide plane. The immobile dislocations are arranged in a “restrictedly random” manner and provide an effective stress field whose statistical properties can be calculated explicitly. We write an equation of motion for the dislocation and compute the associated depinning force, which may be identified with the yield stress. Numerical simulations of a discretized version of the equation confirm these results and allow us to investigate the critical dynamics of the pinning–depinning transition.