Abstract :
The transition from a fluid to a structurally arrested state, upon
changing temperature, pressure or applied external stress, is of
interest in a wide range of systems, such as glass forming liquids,
driven granular matter near jamming and polymer solutions that undergo
gelation. Jamming, a process by which mescoscopic particle assemblies
fail to fluidize under applied stress, has been extensively studied,
using hard and soft sphere packings as model systems, and
corresponding experimental realizations. Among the unresolved aspects
of jamming, as well as other structural arrest processes, is the
change in structure associated with the dynamical arrest transition
and its role. Some key themes regarding the geometry of jammed sphere
packings will be presented, including new observations and insights
from the analysis of void space in a variety of jammed systems shear
jammed packings.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Srikanth Sastry is a Professor at the Theoretical Sciences Unit Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research. He studied
in Bangalore, Bombay and Boston, obtaining a Master's degree in
Physics from IIT Bombay and a Ph D in Physics from Boston University.
After postdoctoral research at the National Institutes of Health and
Princeton University, he has been at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for
Advanced Scientific Research since 1998, with a two year stint in TIFR
Hyderabad during 2012-14. Srikanth Sastry's research interests
concern unusual phase behavior and dynamics of liquids and more
broadly soft matter, whose work has addressed slow dynamics in glassy
systems, different approaches to structural arrest (glass transition,
gelation, and jamming), mechanical behavior of and memory effects in
glasses, liquid-liquid phase transitions in water and silicon, and
related problems.