Three-dimensional imaging of colloidal glasses under steady shear

Using fast confocal microscopy we image the three-dimensional dynamics of particles in a yielded hard-sphere colloidal glass under steady shear. The structural relaxation, observed in regions with uniform shear, is nearly isotropic but is distinctly different from that of quiescent metastable colloidal fluids. The inverse relaxation time tau(alpha)(-1) and diffusion constant D, as functions of the local shear rate gamma*, show marked shear thinning with tau(alpha)(-1) proportional to D proportional to gamma*(0.8) over more than two decades in gamma*. In contrast, the global rheology of the system displays Herschel-Bulkley behavior. We discuss the possible role of large scale shear localization and other mechanisms in generating this difference.