  Reversible plastic events allow amorphous solids to retain memory of past
deformations while irreversible plastic events are responsible for structural
evolution and are associated with yielding. Here we use numerical simulations
to extract the topology of networks of plastic transitions of amorphous solids
and show that the strongly connected components (SCCs) of these networks can be
used to distinguish reversible from irreversible events. This approach allows
us to predict the memory capacity of amorphous solids and provides a framework
for understanding the irreversibility transition under oscillatory shear. Our
findings should be useful for understanding better recent experiments on memory
retention and yielding in granular media and amorphous solids.
