A self-consistent current response theory of jamming and vibrational modes in low-temperature amorphous solids

TL;DR

This paper develops a self-consistent theoretical framework to understand vibrational modes and the jamming transition in low-temperature amorphous solids, predicting critical behaviors and confirming them with numerical models.

Contribution

It introduces a first-principles, self-consistent theory extending beyond the Born approximation to describe vibrational anomalies and un-jamming in disordered solids.

Findings

Speed of sound vanishes as the square root of the distance from the critical point.

Density of states develops a plateau above a frequency that vanishes at the transition.

A characteristic length scale diverges as the system approaches the jamming transition.

Abstract

We study amorphous solids with strong elastic disorder and find an un-jamming instability that exists, inter alia, in an harmonic model built using Euclidean random matrices (ERM). Employing the Zwanzig-Mori projection operator formalism and Gaussian factorization approximations, we develop a first-principles, self-consistent theory of transverse momentum correlations in athermal disordered materials, extending beyond the standard Born approximation. The vibrational anomalies in glass at low temperatures are recovered in the stable solid limit, and floppy modes lacking restoring forces are predicted in unstable states below the jamming transition. Near the un-jamming transition, the speed of sound $v_0^\perp$ vanishes with $ \propto \sqrt{\epsilon}$, where $\epsilon$ denotes the distance from the critical point. Additionally, the density of states develops a plateau, independent of $\epsilon$ above a frequency $\omega_*$ which vanishes at the transition, $\omega_*\propto |\epsilon|$. We identify a characteristic length scale in the un-jammed phase, $\lambda_-^\perp\propto1/\sqrt{\epsilon}$, indicating the distance over which injected momentum remains correlated. We confirm the theoretical predictions with numerical solutions of a scalar ERM model, demonstrating overall good qualitative and partly quantitative agreement.