Related papers: The structure of the hard sphere solid
We numerically study structural properties of mechanically stable packings of hard spheres (HS), in a wide range of packing fractions $0.53 \le \phi \le 0.72$. Detailed structural information is obtained from the analysis of orientational…
Classical hard spheres crystallize at equilibrium at high enough density. Crystals made up of stackings of 2-dimensional hexagonal close-packed layers (e.g. fcc, hcp, etc.) differ in entropy by only about $10^{-3}k_B$ per sphere (all…
The rich variety of densest columnar structures of identical hard spheres inside a cylinder can surprisingly be constructed from a simple and computationally fast sequential deposition of cylinder-touching spheres, if the cylinder-to-sphere…
The hard sphere model is known to show a liquid-solid phase transition, with the solid expected to be either face centered cubic or hexagonal close packed. The difference in free energy between the two structures is very small and various…
Obtaining general relations between macroscopic properties of random assemblies, such as density, and the microscopic properties of their constituent particles, such as shape, is a foundational challenge in the study of amorphous materials.…
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…
We consider the motion of a finite though large number $N$ of hard spheres in the whole space $\mathbb{R}^n$. Particles move freely until they experience elastic collisions. We use our recent theory of Compensated Integrability in order to…
The topological structure resulting from the network of contacts between grains (contact network) is studied for very large samples of disorderly-packed monosized spheres with densities ranging from 0.58 to 0.64. The hierarchical…
A hybrid helical structure of equal-sized hard spheres in cylindrical confinement was discovered as a 'by-product' of the recently developed sequential deposition approach [Physical Review E 84, 050302(R) (2011)] for constructing the…
The structural properties of dense random packings of identical hard spheres (HS) are investigated. The bond order parameter method is used to obtain detailed information on the local structural properties of the system for different…
The discrepancy in nucleation rate densities between simulated and experimental hard spheres remains staggering and unexplained. Suggestively, more strongly sedimenting colloidal suspensions of hard spheres nucleate much faster than weakly…
Entropy drives the phase behavior of colloids ranging from dense suspensions of hard spheres or rods to dilute suspensions of hard spheres and depletants. Entropic ordering of anisotropic shapes into complex crystals, liquid crystals, and…
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…
The inherent structure landscape for a system of hard spheres confined to a hard cylindrical channel, such that spheres can only contact their first and second neighbours, is studied using an analytical model that extends previous results…
We numerically study the structure of the interactions occurring in three-dimensional systems of hard spheres at jamming, focusing on the large-scale behavior. Given the fundamental role they play in the configuration of jammed packings, we…
The packing of hard spheres (HS) of diameter $\sigma$ in a cylinder has been used to model experimental systems, such as fullerenes in nanotubes and colloidal wire assembly. Finding the densest packings of HS under this type of confinement,…
We investigate the response of a system of hard spheres to two classes of perturbations over a range of densities spanning the fluid, crystalline, and glassy regimes within a molecular dynamics framework. Firstly, we consider the relaxation…
Elastic properties and internal states of isotropic sphere packings are studied by numerical simulations. Several numerical protocols to assemble dense configurations are compared. One, which imitates experiments with lubricated contacts,…
We report a numerical calculation of the elastic constants of the fcc and hcp crystal phases of monodisperse hard-sphere colloids. Surprisingly, some of these elastic constants are very different (up to 20%), even though the free energy,…
The steady state reached by a system of particles sliding down a fluctuating surface has interesting properties. Particle clusters form and break rapidly, leading to a broad distribution of sizes and large fluctuations. The density-density…