Critical Scaling of Compression-Driven Jamming of Athermal Frictionless Spheres in Suspension

TL;DR

This study numerically investigates the critical behavior of athermal, frictionless spheres under compression, revealing that the jamming transition exhibits universal critical scaling similar to shear-driven jamming.

Contribution

It demonstrates that compression-driven jamming shares the same universality class as shear-driven jamming through critical scaling analysis.

Findings

Pressure follows a critical scaling relation with packing fraction and compression rate.

Bulk viscosity diverges as the system approaches jamming.

Critical exponents characterize the jamming transition.

Abstract

We study numerically a system of athermal, overdamped, frictionless spheres, as in a non-Brownian suspension, in two and three dimensions. Compressing the system isotropically at a fixed rate $\dot\epsilon$, we investigate the critical behavior at the jamming transition. The finite compression rate introduces a control timescale, which allows one to probe the critical timescale associated with jamming. As was found previously for steady-state shear-driven jamming, we find for compression-driven jamming that pressure obeys a critical scaling relation as a function of packing fraction $\phi$ and compression rate $\dot\epsilon$, and that the bulk viscosity $p/\dot\epsilon$ diverges upon jamming. A scaling analysis determines the critical exponents associated with the compression-driven jamming transition. Our results suggest that stress-isotropic, compression-driven, jamming may be in the same universality class as stress-anisotropic, shear-driven, jamming.