Shear-stress relaxation and ensemble transformation of shear-stress autocorrelation functions.

We revisit the relation between the shear-stress relaxation modulus G(t), computed at finite shear strain 0<γ≪1, and the shear-stress autocorrelation functions C(t)|(γ) and C(t)|(τ) computed, respectively, at imposed strain γ and mean stress τ. Focusing on permanent isotropic spring networks it is shown theoretically and computationally that in general G(t)=C(t)|(τ)=C(t)|(γ)+G(eq) for t>0 with G(eq) being the static equilibrium shear modulus. G(t) and C(t)|(γ) thus must become different for solids and it is impossible to obtain G(eq) alone from C(t)|(γ) as often assumed. We comment briefly on self-assembled transient networks where G(eq)(f) must vanish for a finite scission-recombination frequency f. We argue that G(t)=C(t)|(τ)=C(t)|(γ) should reveal an intermediate plateau set by the shear modulus G(eq)(f=0) of the quenched network.