2021/11/16 by Jikai Wang, Wang, Jikai, J. M. Schwarz +3 · 1 citation
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · Mathematics · #Material Dynamics and Properties #Theoretical and Computational Physics #Stochastic processes and statistical mechanics
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2111.08762
The interface separating a liquid from its vapor phase is diffuse: the composition varies continuously from one phase to the other over a finite length. Recent experiments on dynamic jamming fronts in two dimensions [Waitukaitis et al., Europhysics Letters 102, 44001 (2013)] identified a diffuse interface between jammed and unjammed discs. In both cases, the thickness of the interface diverges as a critical transition is approached. We investigate the generality of this behavior using a third system: a model of cyclically-sheared non-Brownian suspensions. As we sediment the particles towards a boundary, we observe a diffuse traveling front that marks the interface between irreversible and reversible phases. We argue that the front width is linked to a diverging correlation lengthscale in the bulk, which we probe by studying avalanches near criticality. Our results show how diffuse interfaces may arise generally when an incompressible phase is brought to a critical point.