Scaling ansatz for the jamming transition

Abstract

We propose a Widom-like scaling ansatz for the critical jamming transition. Our ansatz for the elastic energy shows that the scaling of the energy, compressive strain, shear strain, system size, pressure, shear stress, bulk modulus, and shear modulus are all related to each other via scaling relations, with only three independent scaling exponents. We extract the values of these exponents from already known numerical or theoretical results, and we numerically verify the resulting predictions of the scaling theory for the energy and residual shear stress. We also derive a scaling relation between pressure and residual shear stress that yields insight into why the shear and bulk moduli scale differently. Our theory shows that the jamming transition exhibits an emergent scale invariance, setting the stage for the potential development of a renormalization group theory for jamming.