Rigidity of thermalized soft repulsive spheres around the jamming point

TL;DR

This paper investigates how thermal effects influence the rigidity of soft repulsive spheres near jamming, revealing that thermalization softens the system more than expected, with shear-modulus approaching zero at low temperatures.

Contribution

It introduces a combined theoretical and simulation approach to analyze the shear-modulus behavior of thermalized jamming systems, challenging the traditional harmonic solid model.

Findings

Thermalized jamming systems are softer than at zero temperature.

Shear-modulus approaches zero as temperature decreases.

Thermal effects significantly alter the mechanical properties near jamming.

Abstract

We study the effect of thermalization on the rigidity of a randomly packed soft repulsive sphere system around the jamming point by analyzing the shear-modulus using the cloned liquid theory with the 1 step replica symmetry breaking ansatz and molecular dynamics simulations. Contrarily to the usual harmonic picture for solids, we found that the thermalized jamming system is anomalously softer than at zero temperature such that the shear-modulus becomes as small as the pressure down to vanishingly low temperatures.