Size and density avalanche scaling near jamming (1311.1377v1)

Abstract: The current microscopic picture of plasticity in amorphous materials assumes local failure events to produce displacement fields complying with linear elasticity. Indeed, the flow properties of nonaffine systems such as foams, emulsions and granular materials close to jamming, that produce a fluctuating displacement fields when failing, are still controversial. Here we show, via a thorough numerical investigation of jammed materials, that nonaffinity induces a critical scaling of the flow properties dictated by the distance to the jamming point. We rationalize this critical behavior introducing a new universal jamming exponent and hyperscaling relations, and use these results to describe the volume fraction dependence of the friction coefficient.