Related papers: Phase Transitions in Granular Packings
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…
One of the most spectacular phenomena in physics in terms of dynamical range is the glass transition and the associated slowing down of flow and relaxation with decreasing temperature. That it occurs in many different liquids seems to call…
Using x-ray tomography, we experimentally investigate the nematic transition in granular spherocylinder packings induced by tapping. Upon the validation of the Edwards ensemble framework in spherocylinders, we introduce an empirical free…
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 in this work the 2D dynamics of an experimental system of disk-shaped rotors, fluidized by turbulent upflow. Contrary to previous knowledge, our experiments show the same particle chiral geometry can produce flows with different…
Phase transitions of a flux lattice in layered superconductors with magnetic field perpendicular to the layers and in presence of disorder are studied. We find that disorder generates a random Josephson coupling between layers which leads…
Experiments and theory have shown that cell monolayers and epithelial tissues exhibit solid-liquid and glass-liquid transitions. These transitions are biologically relevant to our understanding of embryonic development, wound healing, and…
A systematic investigation is presented of grain boundaries and grain boundary networks in two dimensional flexible membranes with crystalline order. An isolated grain boundary undergoes a buckling transition at a critical value of the…
We study an air-fluidized granular monolayer, composed of plastic spheres which roll on a metallic grid. The air current is adjusted so that the spheres never loose contact with the grid, so that the dynamics may be regarded as pseudo…
Controlled experimental studies of percolation are challenging due to difficulties in tuning site connectivity, isolating local interactions, and mitigating finite-size effects. In this work, we experimentally investigate percolation with a…
The entanglement properties of the phase transition in a two dimensional harmonic lattice, similar to the one observed in recent ion trap experiments, are discussed both, for finite number of particles and thermodynamical limit. We show…
Particulate matter, such as foams, emulsions, and granular materials, attain rigidity in a dense regime: the rigid phase can yield when a threshold force is applied. The rigidity transition in particulate matter exhibits {\it bona fide}…
The excitation-chain theory of the glass transition, proposed in an earlier publication, predicts diverging, super-Arrhenius relaxation times and, {\it via} a similarly diverging length scale, suggests a way of understanding the relations…
We develop a percolation model motivated by recent experimental studies of gels with active network remodeling by molecular motors. This remodeling was found to lead to a critical state reminiscent of random percolation (RP), but with a…
The Ising lattice gas, with its well known equilibrium properties, displays a number of surprising phenomena when driven into non-equilibrium steady states. We study such a model with anisotropic interparticle interactions ($J_{\Vert }\neq…
A wide range of disordered materials, from biological to geological assemblies, feature discrete elements undergoing large shape changes. How significant geometrical variations at the microscopic scale affect the response of the assembly,…
We represent a theory of polymer gelation as an analogue of liquid-glass transition in which elastic fields of stress and strain shear components appear spontaneously as a consequence of the cross-linking of macromolecules. This…
In this paper, we recall various features of non equilibrium granular systems. Clusters with specific properties are found depending on the packing density, going from loose (a granular gas) to sintered (though brittle) polycrystalline…
We review the understanding of the random constraint satisfaction problems, focusing on the q-coloring of large random graphs, that has been achieved using the cavity method of the physicists. We also discuss the properties of the phase…
We study chirality transitions in frustrated ferromagnetic spin chains, in view of a possible connection with the theory of Liquid Crystals. A variational approach to the study of these systems has been recently proposed by Cicalese and…