English

Generating ultradense jammed ellipse packings using biased SWAP

Soft Condensed Matter 2024-10-01 v1

Abstract

Using a Lubachevsky-Stillinger-like growth algorithm combined with biased SWAP Monte Carlo and transient degrees of freedom, we generate ultradense disordered jammed ellipse packings. For all aspect ratios α\alpha, these packings exhibit significantly smaller intermediate-wavelength density fluctuations and greater local nematic order than their less-dense counterparts. The densest packings are disordered despite having packing fractions ϕJ(α)\phi_{\rm J}(\alpha) that are within less than 0.5% of that of the monodisperse-ellipse crystal [ϕxtal=π/(23).9069\phi_{\rm xtal} = \pi/(2\sqrt{3}) \simeq .9069] over the range 1.25α1.41.25 \lesssim \alpha \lesssim 1.4 and coordination numbers ZJ(α)Z_{\rm J}(\alpha) that are within less than 0.5% of isostaticity [Ziso=6Z_{\rm iso} = 6] over the range 1.3α2.01.3 \lesssim \alpha \lesssim 2.0. Lower-α\alpha packings are strongly fractionated and consist of polycrystals of intermediate-size particles, with the largest and smallest particles isolated at the grain boundaries. Higher-α\alpha packings are also fractionated, but in a qualitatively-different fashion; they are composed of increasingly-large locally-nematic domains reminiscent of liquid glasses.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2409.19196,
  title  = {Generating ultradense jammed ellipse packings using biased SWAP},
  author = {Robert S. Hoy},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.19196},
  year   = {2024}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T19:00:16.525Z