Jamming at zero temperature and zero applied stress: The epitome of disorder

We have studied how two- and three-dimensional systems made up of particles interacting with finite range, repulsive potentials jam (i.e., develop a yield stress in a disordered state) at zero temperature and zero applied stress. At low packing fractions phi, the system is not jammed and each particle can move without impediment from its neighbors. For each configuration, there is a unique jamming threshold phi(c) at which particles can no longer avoid each other, and the bulk and shear moduli simultaneously become nonzero. The distribution of phi(c) values becomes narrower as the system size increases, so that essentially all configurations jam at the same packing fraction in the thermodynamic limit. This…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Award: 0087349
• DO
  Division of Materials Research