Critical jamming of frictional grains in the generalized isostaticity picture

¹  Instituut-Lorentz, LION, Leiden University - P.O. Box 9506, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
²  Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory, LION, Leiden University - P.O. Box 9504, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands

Corresponding author: henkes@lorentz.leidenuniv.nl

Received: 30 September 2009
Accepted: 24 March 2010

Abstract

While frictionless spheres at jamming are isostatic, frictional spheres at jamming are not. As a result, frictional spheres near jamming do not necessarily exhibit an excess of soft modes. However, a generalized form of isostaticity can be introduced if fully mobilized contacts at the Coulomb friction threshold are considered as slipping contacts. We show here that, in this framework, the vibrational density of states (DOS) of frictional discs exhibits a plateau when the generalized isostaticity line is approached. The crossover frequency ω* scales linearly with the distance from this line. Moreover, we show that the frictionless limit, which appears singular when fully mobilized contacts are treated elastically, becomes smooth when fully mobilized contacts are allowed to slip. Finally, we elucidate the nature of the vibrational modes, both for slipping and for non-slipping fully mobilized contacts.