Fluctuations and correlations during the shear flow of elastic particles near the jamming transition

TL;DR

This study investigates the behavior of frictionless soft discs near the jamming transition, revealing critical fluctuations in some properties and non-critical dynamical correlations influenced by system size and strain rate.

Contribution

It provides a detailed numerical analysis of flow properties and correlations near the jamming point, highlighting the critical and non-critical behaviors observed.

Findings

Contact fluctuations show critical behavior near jamming

Shear modulus fluctuations are governed by proximity to jamming

Dynamical correlations are non-critical and system size dependent

Abstract

We present a numerical study of the flow of an assembly of frictionless soft discs at zero temperature, in the vicinity of and slightly above the jamming density. We find that some of the flow properties, such as the fluctuations in the number of contacts or the shear modulus, display a critical like behaviour that is governed by the proximity to the jamming point. Dynamical correlations during a quasistatic deformation, however, are non critical and dominated by system size. At finite strain rates, these dynamical correlations acquire a finite, strain-rate dependent amplitude, that decreases when approaching the jamming point from above.