Jammed disks in a narrow channel: criticality and ordering tendencies

A system of identical disks is confined to a narrow channel, closed off at one end by a stopper and at the other end by a piston. All surfaces are hard and frictionless. A uniform gravitational field is directed parallel to the plane of the disks and perpendicular to the axis of the channel. We employ a method of configurational statistics that interprets jammed states as configurations of floating particles with structure. The particles interlink according to set rules. The two jammed microstates with smallest volume act as a pseudo-vacuum. The placement of particles is subject to a generalized Pauli principle. Jammed macrostates are generated by random agitations and specified by two control variables. They are inferred from measures for expansion work against the piston, gravitational potential energy, and intensity of random agitations. In this two-dimensional space of variables there exists a critical point. The jammed macrostate realized at the critical point depends on the path of approach. We describe all jammed macrostates by volume and entropy. Both are functions of the average population densities of particles. Approaching the critical point in an extended space of control variables generates two types of jammed macrostates: states with random heterogeneities in mass density and states with domains of uniform mass density. Criticality is shown to be robust against some effects of friction.