Structural properties of dense hard spheres near random close packing

2013/05/05 by Klumov, Boris A., Jin, Yuliang, Makse, Hernan A.
#FOS: Physical sciences #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)

paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1305.1032

Abstract

We numerically study structural properties of mechanically stable packings of hard spheres (HS), in a wide range of packing fractions 0.53 ≤ ϕ≤ 0.72. Detailed structural information is obtained from the analysis of orientational order parameters, which clearly reveals a disorder-order phase transition at the random close packing (RCP) density, ϕ_{\rm c} ≃ 0.64. Above ϕ_{\rm c} the crystalline nuclei form 3D-like clusters, which upon further desification, transform into alternating planar-like layers. We also find that particles with icosahedral symmetry survive only in a narrow density range in the vicinity of the RCP transition.

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