2018/06/29 by Dion Koeze, Dion J. Koeze, Brian P. Tighe
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic packing factor #Cluster (spacecraft) #Cluster size #Collective behavior #Colloid #Computer science #Condensed matter physics #Granular material #Granular matter #Hard spheres #Jamming #Material Dynamics and Properties #Molecular dynamics #Phase Equilibria and Thermodynamics #Physics #Pickering emulsions and particle stabilization #Quantum mechanics #SPHERES #Soft matter #Statistical physics #Theoretical physics #Universality (dynamical systems) #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.121.188002
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 188002 (2018) · 4 pages, 5 figures
arxiv created 2018/06/29 · openalex publication_date 2018/11/02 · arxiv updated 2018/11/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
While the large majority of theoretical and numerical studies of the jamming transition consider athermal packings of purely repulsive spheres, real complex fluids and soft solids generically display attraction between particles. By studying the statistics of rigid clusters in simulations of soft particles with an attractive shell, we present evidence for two distinct jamming scenarios. Strongly attractive systems undergo a continuous transition in which rigid clusters grow and ultimately diverge in size at a critical packing fraction. Purely repulsive and weakly attractive systems jam via a first-order transition, with no growing cluster size. We further show that the weakly attractive scenario is a finite size effect, so that for any nonzero attraction strength, a sufficiently large system will fall in the strongly attractive universality class. We therefore expect attractive jamming to be generic in the laboratory and in nature.