Jamming transition and new percolation universality classes in particulate systems with attraction

Phys Rev Lett. 2008 Jan 18;100(2):028001. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.028001. Epub 2008 Jan 17.

Abstract

We numerically study the jamming transition in particulate systems with attraction by investigating their mechanical response at zero temperature (T=0). We find three regimes of mechanical behavior separated by two critical transitions--connectivity and rigidity percolation. The transitions belong to different universality classes than their lattice counterparts, due to force balance constraints. We also find that these transitions are unchanged at low temperatures and resemble gelation transitions in experiments on colloidal and silica gels.