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Updated: Aug 8, 2026

Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets
Published on: May 15, 2017
Structural signatures of the unjamming transition at zero temperature
Leonardo E Silbert1, Andrea J Liu, Sidney R Nagel
1James Franck Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
Abstract:
We study the pair correlation function g(r) for zero-temperature, disordered, soft-sphere packings just above the onset of jamming. We find distinct signatures of the transition in both the first and split second peaks of this function. As the transition is approached from the jammed side (at higher packing fraction) the first peak diverges and narrows on the small-r side to a delta function. On the high-r side of this peak, g(r) decays as a power law. In the split second peak, the two subpeaks are both singular at the transition, with power-law behavior on their low-r sides and step-function drop-offs on their high-r sides. These singularities at the transition are reminiscent of empirical criteria that have previously been used to distinguish glassy structures from liquid ones.
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