Shear jamming and shear melting in mechanically trained frictionless particles

Abstract

We investigate criticality near the jamming transition in both quiescent systems and those under shear by considering the effect of mechanical training on the jamming transition and nonlinear rheology. We simulate frictionless soft particles undergoing athermal quasi-static shear using initial configurations trained with athermal quasi-static cyclic volume deformations. The jamming transition density of the initial configuration $\varphi_{\rm J0}$ is systematically altered by tuning the ``depth'' of mechanical training. We exert a steady shear on these configurations and observe either shear jamming (gain of stiffness due to shear) or shear melting (loss of stiffness due to shear), depending on the depth of training and proximity to the jamming transition density. We also observe that the characteristic strains, at which shear jamming or melting occur, diverge at a unique density $\varphi_{\rm JS}$. This is due to the shift of the jamming transition density from $\varphi_{\rm J0}$ to $\varphi_{\rm JS}$ under shear, associated with loss of memory of the initial configuration. Finally, we thoroughly investigate nonlinear rheology near the jamming transition density, and contrary to previous works, we find a nonlinear ``softening'' takes place below as well as above the jamming transition density.