de Geus, T. W. J.Wyart, Matthieu2023-02-272023-02-272023-02-272022-12-0810.1103/PhysRevE.106.065001https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/195121WOS:000921473700006Slip at a frictional interface occurs via intermittent events. Understanding how these events are nucleated, can propagate, or stop spontaneously remains a challenge, central to earthquake science and tribology. In the absence of disorder, rate-and-state approaches predict a diverging nucleation length at some stress a*, beyond which cracks can propagate. Here we argue for a flat interface that disorder is a relevant perturbation to this description. We justify why the distribution of slip contains two parts: a power law corresponding to "avalanches" and a "narrow" distribution of system-spanning "fracture" events. We derive novel scaling relations for avalanches, including a relation between the stress drop and the spatial extension of a slip event. We compute the cut-off length beyond which avalanches cannot be stopped by disorder, leading to a system-spanning fracture, and successfully test these predictions in a minimal model of frictional interfaces.Physics, Fluids & PlasmasPhysics, MathematicalPhysicsstick-slipgutenberg-richtercritical-dynamicsrock frictionsub-rayleighruptureearthquakesbehaviormodelsonsettext::journal::journal article::research article