Jamming Percolation in Three Dimensions

We introduce a three-dimensional model for jamming and glasses, and prove that the fraction of frozen particles is discontinuous at the directed-percolation critical density. In agreement with the accepted scenario for jamming- and glass-transitions, this is a mixed-order transition; the discontinuity is accompanied by diverging length- and time-scales. Because one-dimensional directed-percolation paths comprise the backbone of frozen particles, the unfrozen rattlers may use the third dimension to travel between their cages. Thus the dynamics are diffusive on long-times even above the critical density for jamming.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

Density of states of colloidal glasses

Glasses are structurally liquid-like, but mechanically solid-like. Most attempts to understand glasses start from liquid state theory. Here we take the opposite point of view, and use concepts from solid state physics. We determine the vibrational modes of a colloidal glass experimentally, and find soft low-frequency modes that are very different in nature from the usual acoustic vibrations of ordinary solids. These modes extend over surprisingly large length scales

Connecting Structural Relaxation with the Low Frequency Modes in a Hard-Sphere Colloidal Glass

Structural relaxation in hard-sphere colloidal glasses has been studied using confocal microscopy. The motion of individual particles is followed over long time scales to detect the rearranging regions in the system. We have used normal mode analysis to understand the origin of the rearranging regions. The low frequency modes, obtained over short time scales, show strong spatial correlation with the rearrangements that happen on long time scales.Comment: Accepted in Phys. Rev. Let

Structuring with anisotropic colloids

Structure is an important factor in food. One of the ways to provide structure to foods is by using bubbles and foams. However, they need to be stabilized. One way of doing this is by covering them with microscopic rods. These rods self-assemble at the surface, yielding a stable bubble. The goal of this work is to gain a better understanding into how this self-assembly works using analytical calculations, experiments and simulations

Structuring with anisotropic colloids

Structure is an important factor in food. One of the ways to provide structure to foods is by using bubbles and foams. However, they need to be stabilized. One way of doing this is by covering them with microscopic rods. These rods self-assemble at the surface, yielding a stable bubble. The goal of this work is to gain a better understanding into how this self-assembly works using analytical calculations, experiments and simulations

Critical role of pinning defects in scroll-wave breakup in active media

The breakup of rotating scroll waves in three-dimensional excitable media has been linked to important biological processes. The known mechanisms for this transition almost exclusively involve the dynamics of the scroll filament, i.e., the line connecting the phase singularities. In this paper, we describe a novel defect-induced route to breakup of a scroll wave pinned by an inexcitable obstacle partially extending through the bulk of the medium. The wave is helically wound around the defect inducing sudden changes in velocity components of the wavefront at the obstacle boundary. This results in breakup far from the filament, eventually giving rise to spatiotemporal chaos. Our results suggest a potentially critical role of pinning obstacles in the onset of life-threatening disturbances of cardiac activity

Direct Observation of Percolation in the Yielding Transition of Colloidal Glasses

When strained beyond the linear regime, soft colloidal glasses yield to steady-state plastic flow in a way that is similar to the deformation of conventional amorphous solids. Because of the much larger size of the colloidal particles with respect to the atoms comprising an amorphous solid, colloidal glasses allow us to obtain microscopic insight into the nature of the yielding transition, as we illustrate here combining experiments, atomistic simulations, and mesoscopic modeling. Our results unanimously show growing clusters of nonaffine deformation percolating at yielding. In agreement with percolation theory, the spanning cluster is fractal with a fractal dimension df≃2, and the correlation length diverges upon approaching the critical yield strain. These results indicate that percolation of highly nonaffine particles is the hallmark of the yielding transition in disordered glassy systems.Peer reviewe

Low energy modes and Debye behavior in a colloidal crystal

withdrawn by the author due to double submission in arXiv:1102.4271 .Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure