Unexpected density fluctuations in jammed disordered sphere packings.
We computationally study jammed disordered hard-sphere packings as large as a million particles. We show that the packings are saturated and hyperuniform, i.e., that local density fluctuations grow only as a logarithmically augmented surface area rather than the volume of the window. The structure factor shows an unusual nonanalytic linear dependence near the origin, S(k) approximately |k|. In addition to exponentially damped oscillations seen in liquids, this implies a weak power-law tail in the total correlation function, h(r) approximately -r(-4), and a long-ranged direct correlation function c(r).
Donev
Aleksandar
A
Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
Stillinger
Frank H
FH
Torquato
Salvatore
S