We assess if a characteristic length for a non-linear interfacial slip instability follows from theoretical descriptions of sliding friction. We examine friction laws and their coupling with the elasticity of bodies in contact and show that such a length does not always exist. We consider a range of descriptions for frictional strength and show that the area needed to support a slip instability is negligibly small for laws that are more faithful to experimental data. This questions whether a minimum earthquake size exists and shows that the nucleation phase of dynamic rupture contains discriminatory information on the nature of frictional strength evolution.

中文翻译：

---

摩擦状态演化规律与动态剪切破裂的非线性成核

我们评估非线性界面滑动不稳定性的特征长度是否遵循滑动摩擦的理论描述。我们检查了摩擦定律及其与接触物体弹性的耦合，并表明这样的长度并不总是存在。我们考虑了对摩擦强度的一系列描述，并表明支持滑移不稳定性所需的面积对于更忠实于实验数据的定律来说可以忽略不计。这质疑是否存在最小地震规模，并表明动态破裂的成核阶段包含关于摩擦强度演化性质的鉴别信息。