Contacts Dynamics Reveals Widom Lines for Jamming

Abstract

We experimentally study the vicinity of the Jamming transition by investigating the statics and the dynamics of the contact network of an horizontally shaken bi-disperse packing of photo-elastic discs. Compressing the packing very slowly, while maintaining a mechanical excitation, yields a granular glass, namely a frozen structure of vibrating grains. In this glass phase, we observe a remarkable dynamics of the contact network, which exhibits strong dynamical heterogeneities. Such heterogeneities are maximum at a packing fraction $ϕ^*$, \emph{distinct} and smaller than the jamming packing fraction $ϕ_J$, which is indicated by the abrupt variation of the average number of contact per particle. We demonstrate that the two cross-overs, one for the maximum dynamical heterogeneity, and the other for static jamming, converge at point J in the zero mechanical excitation limit, a behavior reminiscent of the Widom lines in the supercritical phase of a second order critical point. Our findings are discussed in the light of recent numerical and theoretical studies of thermal soft spheres.