144 research outputs found
Equilibrium Phase Behavior and Maximally Random Jammed State of Truncated Tetrahedra
Systems of hard nonspherical particles exhibit a variety of stable phases
with different degrees of translational and orientational order, including
isotropic liquid, solid crystal, rotator and a variety of liquid crystal
phases. In this paper, we employ a Monte Carlo implementation of the
adaptive-shrinking-cell (ASC) numerical scheme and free-energy calculations to
ascertain with high precision the equilibrium phase behavior of systems of
congruent Archimedean truncated tetrahedra over the entire range of possible
densities up to the maximal nearly space-filling density. In particular, we
find that the system undergoes two first-order phase transitions as the density
increases: first a liquid-solid transition and then a solid-solid transition.
The isotropic liquid phase coexists with the Conway-Torquato (CT) crystal phase
at intermediate densities. At higher densities, we find that the CT phase
undergoes another first-order phase transition to one associated with the
densest-known crystal. We find no evidence for stable rotator (or plastic) or
nematic phases. We also generate the maximally random jammed (MRJ) packings of
truncated tetrahedra, which may be regarded to be the glassy end state of a
rapid compression of the liquid. We find that such MRJ packings are
hyperuniform with an average packing fraction of 0.770, which is considerably
larger than the corresponding value for identical spheres (about 0.64). We
conclude with some simple observations concerning what types of phase
transitions might be expected in general hard-particle systems based on the
particle shape and which would be good glass formers
Basic Understanding of Condensed Phases of Matter via Packing Models
Packing problems have been a source of fascination for millenia and their
study has produced a rich literature that spans numerous disciplines.
Investigations of hard-particle packing models have provided basic insights
into the structure and bulk properties of condensed phases of matter, including
low-temperature states (e.g., molecular and colloidal liquids, crystals and
glasses), multiphase heterogeneous media, granular media, and biological
systems. The densest packings are of great interest in pure mathematics,
including discrete geometry and number theory. This perspective reviews
pertinent theoretical and computational literature concerning the equilibrium,
metastable and nonequilibrium packings of hard-particle packings in various
Euclidean space dimensions. In the case of jammed packings, emphasis will be
placed on the "geometric-structure" approach, which provides a powerful and
unified means to quantitatively characterize individual packings via jamming
categories and "order" maps. It incorporates extremal jammed states, including
the densest packings, maximally random jammed states, and lowest-density jammed
structures. Packings of identical spheres, spheres with a size distribution,
and nonspherical particles are also surveyed. We close this review by
identifying challenges and open questions for future research.Comment: 33 pages, 20 figures, Invited "Perspective" submitted to the Journal
of Chemical Physics. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1008.298
Structural and entropic insights into the nature of the random-close-packing limit
Disordered packings of equal sized spheres cannot be generated above the limiting density (fraction of volume occupied by the spheres) of ??0.64 without introducing some partial crystallization. The nature of this “random-close-packing” limit (RCP) is investigated by using both geometrical and statistical mechanics tools applied to a large set of experiments and numerical simulations of equal-sized sphere packings. The study of the Delaunay simplexes decomposition reveals that the fraction of “quasiperfect tetrahedra” grows with the density up to a saturation fraction of ?30% reached at the RCP limit. At this limit the fraction of aggregate “polytetrahedral” structures (made of quasiperfect tetrahedra which share a common triangular face) reaches it maximal extension involving all the spheres. Above the RCP limit the polytetrahedral structure gets rapidly disassembled. The entropy of the disordered packings, calculated from the study of the local volume fluctuations, decreases uniformly and vanishes at the (extrapolated) limit ?K?0.66. Before such limit, and precisely in the range of densities between 0.646 and 0.66, a phase separated mixture of disordered and crystalline phases is observed
Structure of sticky-hard-sphere random aggregates: The viewpoint of contact coordination and tetrahedra
International audienceWe study more than 10 4 random aggregates of 10 6 monodisperse sticky hard spheres each, generated by various static algorithms. Their packing fraction varies from 0.370 up to 0.593. These aggregates are shown to be based on two types of disordered structures: random regular polytetrahedra and random aggregates, the former giving rise to δ peaks on pair distribution functions. Distortion of structural (Delaunay) tetrahedra is studied by two parameters, which show some similarities and some differences in terms of overall tendencies. Isotropy of aggregates is characterized by the nematic order parameter. The overall structure is then studied by distinguishing spheres in function of their contact coordination number (CCN). Distributions of average CCN around spheres of a given CCN value show trends that depend on packing fraction and building algorithms. The radial dependence of the average CCN turns out to be dependent upon the CCN of the central sphere and shows discontinuities that resemble those of the pair distribution function. Moreover, it is shown that structural details appear when the CCN is used as pseudochemical parameter, such as various angular distribution of bond angles, partial pair distribution functions, Ashcroft-Langreth and Bhatia-Thornton partial structure factors. These allow distinguishing aggregates with the same values of packing fraction or average tetrahedral distortion or even similar global pair distribution function, indicative of the great interest of paying attention to contact coordination numbers to study more precisely the structure of random aggregates
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