Dear Colleagues,
We would like to invite you to the following SPASS seminar, jointly organized by UniPi, SNS, UniFi and UniSi: *Toward a robust definition of random close packing* by Patrick Charbonneau (Duke University)
The seminar will take place on TUE, 19.03.2024 at 14:30 CET (*please note the unusual time*) in Aula Seminari, Dipartimento di Matematica, UNIPI and streamed online at this link https://meet.google.com/gji-phwo-vbg.
The organizers, A. Agazzi, G. Bet, A. Caraceni, F. Grotto, G. Zanco https://sites.google.com/unipi.it/spass -------------------------------------------- *Abstract: **The apparent simplicity of amorphous sphere packings can be misleading. Although jamming hard spheres to random close packing (rcp) has been studied for decades, an unambiguous definition of rcp, let alone a first-principle prediction remain elusive. Drawing inspiration from liquid state theory, rcp can be identified with the inherent structure of a hard sphere liquid. Identifying inherent structures of hard spheres through optimization, however, is a non-trivial problem. Motivated by a recent (meta-)analysis of existing algorithms, we consider the behavior of minimal models of jamming that can be studied using various approaches, notably with tools from stochastic geometry and the mean-field description of simple glasses. The resulting insights present a path toward formalizing rcp.*