Jamming Transition and Inherent Structures of Hard Spheres and Discs

Abstract: Recent studies show that volume fractions $\phiJ$ at the jamming transition of frictionless hard spheres and discs are not uniquely determined but exist over a continuous range. Motivated by this observation, we numerically investigate dependence of $\phiJ$ on the initial configurations of the parent fluids equilibrated at a fraction $\phiini$, before compressing to generate a jammed packing. We find that $\phiJ$ remains constant when $\phiini$ is small but sharply increases when $\phiini$ exceeds the dynamic transition point which the mode-coupling theory predicts. We carefully analyze configurational properties of both jammed packings and parent fluids and find that, while all jammed packings remain isostatic, the increase of $\phiJ$ is accompanied with subtle but distinct changes of (i) local orders, (ii) a static length scale, and (iii) an exponent of the finite size scaling. These results quantitatively support the scenario of the random first order transition theoryof the glass transition.