Polytetrahedral Nature of the Dense Disordered Packings of Hard Spheres

We study the structure of numerically simulated hard sphere packings at different densities by investigating local tetrahedral configurations of the spheres. Clusters of tetrahedra adjacent by faces present relatively dense aggregates of spheres atypical for crystals. The number of spheres participating in such polytetrahedral configurations increases with densification of the packing, and at the Bernal’s limiting density (the packing fraction around 0.64) all spheres of the packing become involved in such tetrahedra. Thus the polytetrahedral packing cannot provide further increase in the density, and alternative structural change (formation of crystalline nuclei) begins henceforth.