Complete mathematical theory of the jamming transition: A perspective

The jamming transition of frictionless athermal particles is a paradigm to understand the mechanics of amorphous materials at the atomic scale. Concepts related to the jamming transition and the mechanical response of jammed packings have cross-fertilized into other areas such as atomistic descriptions of the elasticity and plasticity of glasses. In this perspective article, the microscopic mathematical theory of the jamming transition is reviewed from first-principles. The starting point of the derivation is a microscopically reversible particle-bath Hamiltonian from which the governing equation of motion for the grains under an external deformation is derived. From this equation of motion, microscopic expressions are obtained for both the shear modulus and the viscosity as a function of the distance from the jamming transition (respectively, above and below the transition). Regarding the vanishing of the shear modulus at the unjamming transition, this theory, as originally demonstrated by Zaccone and Scossa-Romano Phys. Rev. B 83, 184205 (2011), is currently the only quantitative microscopic theory in parameter-free agreement with numerical simulations of O’Hern et al. Phys. Rev. E 68, 011306 (2003) for jammed packings. The divergence of the viscosity upon approaching the jamming transition from below is derived here, for the first time, from the same microscopic Hamiltonian. The quantitative microscopic prediction of the diverging viscosity is shown to be in fair agreement with numerical results of sheared 2D soft disks from Olsson and Teitel Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 178001 (2007).