Related papers: A colloidal viewpoint on the finite sphere packing…
We examine packing of $n$ congruent spheres in a cube when $n$ is close but less than the number of spheres in a regular cubic close-packed (ccp) arrangement of $\lceil p^{3}/2\rceil$ spheres. For this family of packings, the previous…
Packing problems, which ask how to arrange a collection of objects in space to meet certain criteria, are important in a great many physical and biological systems, where geometrical arrangements at small scales control behaviour at larger…
We use numerical simulation to investigate and analyze the way that rigid disks and spheres arrange themselves when compressed next to incommensurate substrates. For disks, a movable set is pressed into a jammed state against an ordered…
The most efficient way to pack equally sized spheres isotropically in 3D is known as the random close packed state, which provides a starting point for many approximations in physics and engineering. However, the particle size distribution…
In the classic circle packing problem, one asks whether a given set of circles can be packed into a given container. Packing problems like this have been shown to be $\mathsf{NP}$-hard. In this paper, we present new sufficient conditions…
Packing problems have been of great interest in many diverse contexts for many centuries. The optimal packing of identical objects has been often invoked to understand the nature of low temperature phases of matter. In celebrated work,…
Molecular simulations of the self-assembly of cone-shaped particles with specific, attractive interactions are performed. Upon cooling from random initial conditions, we find that the cones self assemble into clusters and that clusters…
We study the optimal packing of hard spheres in an infinitely long cylinder, using simulated annealing, and compare our results with the analogous problem of packing disks on the unrolled surface of a cylinder. The densest structures are…
In an Euclidean $d$-space, the container problem asks to pack $n$ equally sized spheres into a minimal dilate of a fixed container. If the container is a smooth convex body and $d\geq 2$ we show that solutions to the container problem can…
We study the optimal packing of short, hard spherocylinders confined to lie tangential to a spherical surface, using simulated annealing and molecular dynamics simulations. For clusters of up to twelve particles, we map out the changes in…
We analyze the geometric structure and mechanical stability of a complete set of isostatic and hyperstatic sphere packings obtained via exact enumeration. The number of nonisomorphic isostatic packings grows exponentially with the number of…
Using experiments and simulations, we investigate the clusters that form when colloidal spheres stick irreversibly to -- or "park" on -- smaller spheres. We use either oppositely charged particles or particles labeled with complementary DNA…
The classical sphere packing problem asks for the best (infinite) arrangement of non-overlapping unit balls which cover as much space as possible. We define a generalized version of the problem, where we allow each ball a limited amount of…
The problem of finding the most efficient way to pack spheres has an illustrious history, dating back to the crystalline arrays conjectured by Kepler and the random geometries explored by Bernal in the 60's. This problem finds applications…
We study the sphere packing problem in Euclidean space where we impose additional constraints on the separations of the center points. We prove that any sphere packing in dimension $48$, with spheres of radii $r$, such that no two centers…
Symbolic and graphical tools, such as Mathematica, enable precise visualization and analysis of void spaces in sphere packings. In the cubic close packing (CCP, or face-centred cubic packing; FCC) arrangement these voids can be partitioned…
During the last few years several new results on packing problems were obtained using a blend of tools from semidefinite optimization, polynomial optimization, and harmonic analysis. We survey some of these results and the techniques…
We have studied the packing of congruent disks on a spherical cap, for caps of different size and number of disks, $N$. This problem has been considered before only in the limit cases of circle packing inside a circle and on a sphere…
In this work we propose a heuristic algorithm for the layout optimization for disks installed in a rotating circular container. This is a unequal circle packing problem with additional balance constraints. It proved to be an NP-hard…
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…