  Molecular dynamics simulations are performed to examine the dynamic response
of amorphous solids to oscillatory shear at finite temperatures. The data were
collected from a poorly annealed binary glass, which was deformed periodically
in the elastic regime during several hundred shear cycles. We found that the
characteristic time required to reach a steady state with a minimum potential
energy is longer at higher temperatures and larger strain amplitudes. With
decreasing strain amplitude, the asymptotic value of the potential energy
increases but it remains lower than in quiescent samples. The transient decay
of the potential energy correlates well with a gradual decrease in the volume
occupied by atoms with large nonaffine displacements. By contrast, the maximum
amplitude of shear stress oscillations is attained relatively quickly when a
large part of the system starts to deform reversibly.
