Jamming transition and normal modes of polydispersed soft particle packing

TL;DR

This study numerically explores how polydispersity affects the jamming transition and vibrational properties of soft particle packings, revealing that certain critical behaviors are robust against size distribution variations.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the influence of polydispersity on jamming phenomena, showing that some properties remain unaffected by particle size distribution.

Findings

Polydispersity affects contact forces and local coordination.

Critical scaling of pressure and elastic moduli is unchanged by polydispersity.

Vibrational density of states is insensitive to particle size distribution.

Abstract

The jamming transition of soft particles characterized by narrow size distributions has been well studied by physicists. However, polydispersed systems are more relevant to engineering, and the influence of polydispersity on jamming phenomena is still unexplored. Here, we numerically investigate jamming transitions of polydispersed soft particles in two dimensions. We find that polydispersity strongly influences contact forces, local coordination, and the jamming transition density. In contrast, the critical scaling of pressure and elastic moduli is not affected by the particle size distribution. Consistent with this observation, we find that the vibrational density of states is also insensitive to the polydispersity. Our results suggest that, regardless of particle size distributions, both mechanical and vibrational properties of soft particle packings near jamming are governed by the distance to jamming.