2003/08/18 by Sanat K. Kumar, Sanat Kumar, Kumar, Sanat K. +6
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Granular flow and fluidized beds #Material Dynamics and Properties #Pickering emulsions and particle stabilization #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0308352
arxiv created 2003/08/18 · openalex publication_date 2003/08/18 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Computer simulations of hard spheres and disks are used to estimate the most probable cavity size, ξ\rm cavity, and a ``rattle'' size, ξ\rm rattle, over which a particle can translate holding all other particles fixed. Both of these measures of free volume appear to extrapolate to zero at the random close packed density, ρ\rm rcp, close to the density where extrapolations of the viscosity diverge. We also identify the onset of caging as the density at which cavities cluster. These results suggest that vitrification in hard core fluids can be viewed as a geometrical phenomenon, and that \em local free volume measures can identify the location of the onset of liquid-like dynamics, the complex dynamics of caged liquids, and vitrification.