Related papers: Granular packing as model glass formers
The physics of the glass transition and amorphous materials continues to attract the attention of a wide research community after decades of effort. Supercooled liquids and glasses have been studied numerically since the advent of molecular…
Packing problems have been a source of fascination for millenia and their study has produced a rich literature that spans numerous disciplines. Investigations of hard-particle packing models have provided basic insights into the structure…
The persistent problem posed by the glass transition is to develop a general atomic level description of a solidification process that is not associated with any change in the symmetry of the atomic structure. The answer proposed in this…
The behavior of a family of mean-field glass models is reviewed. The models are analyzed by means of a Langevin-based approach to the dynamics and a Replica theory computation of the thermodynamics. We focus on the phase diagram of a…
Granular convergence is a property of a granular pack as it is repeatedly sheared in a cyclic, quasistatic fashion, as the packing configuration changes via discrete events. Under suitable conditions the set of microscopic configurations…
Theoretical challenges in understanding the nature of glass and the glass transition remain significant open questions in statistical and condensed matter physics. As a prototypical example of complex physical systems, glasses and the…
Understanding glass formation is a challenge because the existence of a true glass state, distinct from liquid and solid, remains elusive: Glasses are liquids that have become too viscous to flow. An old idea, as yet unproven…
We study the glass transition of binary mixtures of dipolar particles in two dimensions within the framework of mode-coupling theory, focusing in particular on the influence of composition changes. In a first step, we demonstrate that the…
We investigate the dynamics of a driven system of dissipative hard spheres in the framework of mode-coupling theory. The dissipation is modeled by normal restitution, and driving is applied to individual particles in the bulk. In such a…
In many interesting physical settings, such as the vulcanization of rubber, the introduction of permanent random constraints between the constituents of a homogeneous fluid can cause a phase transition to a random solid state. In this…
We present an experiment on crystallization of packings of macroscopic granular spheres. This system is often considered to be a model for thermally driven atomic or colloidal systems. Cyclically shearing a packing of frictional spheres, we…
We describe the contact network of granular packings by a frustrated lattice gas that contains steric frustration as essential ingredient. Two transitions are identified, a spin glass transition at the onset of Reynolds dilatancy and at…
Exploring structural order in disordered systems including liquids and glasses is an intriguing but challenging issue in condensed matter physics. Here we construct a new parameter based on the angular distribution function of particles and…
Nucleation is an activated process in which the system has to overcome a free energy barrier in order for a first-order phase transition between the metastable and the stable phases to take place. In the liquid-to-solid transition the…
The effects of movement of the side walls of a confined granular packing are studied by discrete element, molecular dynamics simulations. The dynamical evolution of the stress is studied as a function of wall movement both in the direction…
Granular simulations are used to probe the particle scale dynamics at short, intermediate, and long time scales for gravity driven, dense granular flows down an inclined plane. On approach to the angle of repose, where motion ceases, the…
We study the geometrical frustration scenario of glass formation for simple hard sphere models. We find that the dual picture in terms of defects brings little insight and no theoretical simplification for the understanding of the slowing…
A disordered spin model suitable for studying inverse freezing in fragile glass-forming systems is introduced. The model is a microscopic realization of the ``random-first order'' scenario in which the glass transition can be either…
Whether the glass transition is caused by an underlying singularity or is a purely kinetic phenomenon is a significant outstanding question. Studying an atomistic glass former, we introduce a sampling method to access temperatures…
Topological defects are typically quantified relative to ordered backgrounds. The importance of these defects to the understanding of physical phenomena including diverse equilibrium melting transitions from low temperature ordered to…