Scaling theory of the jamming transition

ORAL

Abstract

The concept of jamming was first introduced at the University of Chicago by Sid Nagel and Tom Witten. By now we know that there is a zero-temperature critical jamming transition that marks the onset of rigidity in packings of soft repulsive spheres. In contrast to the perfect fcc crystal state, which is the maximally stable state for such systems, the jammed state is only marginally stable mechanically, and thus represents an opposite extreme to the perfect crystal. This marginal stability gives rise to power law scalings and diverging length scales at the transition. Here I will discuss recent developments that put the jamming transition in the same place that the Ising transition was when Leo Kadanoff introduced the ideas of coarse-graining and rescaling into critical phenomena.

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Authors

  • Andrea J. Liu

    University Of Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Dept. of Physcs and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania

  • Carl Goodrich

    Harvard University, SEAS, Harvard University

  • James Sethna

    Cornell University, Cornell Univ, Cornell University, Department of Physics, Physics, Cornell University

  • Sidney R. Nagel

    University of Chicago, James Franck Institute, University of Chicago, Department of Physics, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, University of Chicago, James Franck Institute, Dept. of Physics, University of Chicago