  We explore the link between soft vibrational modes and local relaxation
events in polymer glasses during physical aging, active deformation at constant
strain rate, and subsequent recovery. A softness field is constructed out of
the superposition of the amplitudes of the lowest energy normal modes, and
found to predict up to 70% of the rearrangements. Overlap between softness and
rearrangements increases logarithmically during aging and recovery phases as
energy barriers rise due to physical aging, while yielding rapidly rejuvenates
the overlap to that of a freshly prepared glass. In the strain hardening
regime, correlations rise for uniaxial tensile deformation but not for simple
shear. These trends can be explained by considering the differing degrees of
localization of the soft modes in the two deformation protocols.
