Cavitation and sulcification of soft elastomers are two examples of thresholdless, nonlinear instabilities that evade detection by linearization. I show that the onset of such instabilities can be understood as a kind of phase coexistence between multiple scale-invariant states, and I constructively enumerate the possible scale-invariant states of incompressible rubber in two dimensions. Whereas true phases (like the affine deformations of rubber) are homogeneous, the alternatives are inhomogeneous. In terms of the thermodynamics of solids, both classes of states must generally be given equal consideration.

• Received 15 April 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.185701