Particle-scale reversibility in athermal particulate media below jamming


Abstract in English

We perform numerical simulations of athermal repulsive frictionless disks and spheres in two and three spatial dimensions undergoing cyclic quasi-static simple shear to investigate particle-scale reversible motion. We identify three classes of steady-state dynamics as a function of packing fraction phi and maximum strain amplitude per cycle gamma_{rm max}. Point-reversible states, where particles do not collide and exactly retrace their intra-cycle trajectories, occur at low phi and gamma_{rm max}. Particles in loop-reversible states undergo numerous collisions and execute complex trajectories, but return to their initial positions at the end of each cycle. Loop-reversible dynamics represents a novel form of self-organization that enables reliable preparation of configurations with specified structural and mechanical properties over a broad range of phi from contact percolation to jamming onset at phi_J. For sufficiently large phi and gamma_{rm max}, systems display irreversible dynamics with nonzero self-diffusion.

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