English

Connecting packing efficiency of binary hard sphere systems to their intermediate range structure

Soft Condensed Matter 2023-02-15 v1 Disordered Systems and Neural Networks Materials Science Statistical Mechanics

Abstract

Using computed x-ray tomography we determine the three dimensional (3d) structure of binary hard sphere mixtures as a function of composition and size ratio of the particles, q. Using a recently introduced four-point correlation function we reveal that this 3d structure has on intermediate and large length scales a surprisingly regular order, the symmetry of which depends on q. The related structural correlation length has a minimum at the composition at which the packing fraction is highest. At this composition also the number of different local particle arrangements has a maximum, indicating that efficient packing of particles is associated with a structure that is locally maximally disordered.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2109.00189,
  title  = {Connecting packing efficiency of binary hard sphere systems to their intermediate range structure},
  author = {Houfei Yuan and Zhen Zhang and Walter Kob and Yujie Wang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2109.00189},
  year   = {2023}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-24T05:35:06.218Z