Proximity to Jamming Governs Acoustic Attenuation in Damped Packings
Abstract
We use particle-based numerical simulations to address a longstanding question regarding the origins of the linear frequency dependence of attenuation in fluid-saturated granular media. We study both the acoustic modes and wave propagation in damped, disordered particle packings. We calculate the damped vibrational modes of packings as a function of frequency, pressure, and grain-contact dissipation. The spatial structure and dissipation of these modes show a clear transition at a pressure-dependent critical frequency from viscous-like continuum behavior to more localized, scattering modes. We also measure how wavespeed and spatial attenuation rate depend on these same parameters. At the same critical frequency, wave propagation also shifts from coherent motion, where attenuation scales quadratically with frequency and linearly with contact damping, to much more incoherent particle-scale motion, where attenuation scales linearly with frequency and sublinearly with contact damping. All of these features, including the transition frequency, are consistent with a large collection of experimental data, which has not been explained by any framework based on grain-scale physics. We refer to this approach as ``Jammed-Network Scattering'' (JNS), and propose it as a grain-scale framework for understanding the acoustics of fluid-saturated granular media.
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BibTeX
@misc{kawamura2026proximity,
title = {{Proximity to Jamming Governs Acoustic Attenuation in Damped Packings}},
author = {Colton Kawamura and Derek R. Olson and Anthony P. Austin and Joshua A. Dijksman and Brian P. Tighe and Abram H. Clark},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2608.28157},
eprint = {2608.28157},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.28157},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Proximity to Jamming Governs Acoustic Attenuation in Damped Packings
AU - Colton Kawamura
AU - Derek R. Olson
AU - Anthony P. Austin
AU - Joshua A. Dijksman
AU - Brian P. Tighe
AU - Abram H. Clark
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/28
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2608.28157
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.28157
AB - We use particle-based numerical simulations to address a longstanding question regarding the origins of the linear frequency dependence of attenuation in fluid-saturated granular media. We study both the acoustic modes and wave propagation in damped, disordered particle packings. We calculate the damped vibrational modes of packings as a function of frequency, pressure, and grain-contact dissipation. The spatial structure and dissipation of these modes show a clear transition at a pressure-dependent critical frequency from viscous-like continuum behavior to more localized, scattering modes. We also measure how wavespeed and spatial attenuation rate depend on these same parameters. At the same critical frequency, wave propagation also shifts from coherent motion, where attenuation scales quadratically with frequency and linearly with contact damping, to much more incoherent particle-scale motion, where attenuation scales linearly with frequency and sublinearly with contact damping. All of these features, including the transition frequency, are consistent with a large collection of experimental data, which has not been explained by any framework based on grain-scale physics. We refer to this approach as ``Jammed-Network Scattering'' (JNS), and propose it as a grain-scale framework for understanding the acoustics of fluid-saturated granular media.
ER -