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Updated: Oct 3, 2025

Hi-C: A Method to Study the Three-dimensional Architecture of Genomes.
Published on: May 6, 2010
Revealing the characteristic length of random close packing via critical-like random pinning
Jianhua Zhang1, Wen Zheng1,2, Hua Tong1
1Department of Physics and CAS Key Laboratory of Microscale Magnetic Resonance, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, P. R. China. wenzheng@ustc.edu.cn.
Abstract:
By randomly pinning particles in fluidized states and finding the local energy minima, we form static packings of mono-disperse disks that resemble random close packing, when only nc = 2.6% of the particles are pinned. The packings are isostatic and exhibit typical critical scalings of the jamming transition. The non-triviality of nc is manifested mainly in two aspects. First, nc acts as a critical point, leading to bifurcated critical scalings in its vicinity. The criticality of nc is also demonstrated in the packings of weakly polydisperse disks. Second, nc sets a length scale in agreement with the characteristic length of random close packing. With robust evidence, we show that this agreement is generally true for both mono- and poly-disperse particles and in both two and three dimensions. The randomness inherited from fluidized states by random pinning thus interprets the randomness of random close packing from a unique perspective.
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