title: Percolation through voids around overlapping spheres: a dynamically based finite-size scaling analysis.
abstract: The percolation threshold for flow or conduction through voids surrounding randomly placed spheres is calculated. With large-scale Monte Carlo simulations, we give a rigorous continuum treatment to the geometry of the impenetrable spheres and the spaces between them. To properly exploit finite-size scaling, we examine multiple systems of differing sizes, with suitable averaging over disorder, and extrapolate to the thermodynamic limit. An order parameter based on the statistical sampling of stochastically driven dynamical excursions and amenable to finite-size scaling analysis is defined, calculated for various system sizes, and used to determine the critical volume fraction ϕc=0.0317±0.0004 and the correlation length exponent ν=0.92±0.05.
authors.affiliation: Department of Science, Kansas City Kansas Community College, Kansas City, Kansas 66112, USA and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Youngstown State University, Youngstown, Ohio 44555, USA.
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Priour