Reply to “Comment on ‘Jamming at zero temperature and zero applied stress: The epitome of disorder’ ”

We answer the questions raised by Donev, Torquato, Stillinger, and Connelly (DTSC) in their preceding Comment on “Jamming at zero temperature and zero applied stress: The epitome of disorder” [Phys. Rev. E 70, 043301 (2004)] We emphasize that we follow a fundamentally different approach than they have done to reinterpret random close packing in terms of the “maximally random jammed” framework. We define the “maximally random jammed packing fraction” to be where the largest number of initial states, chosen completely randomly, have relaxed final states at the jamming threshold in the thermodynamic limit. Thus, we focus on an ensemble of states at the jamming threshold, while DTSC are interested in determining the amount of order and degree of jamming for a particular configuration. We also argue that soft-particle systems are as “clean” as those using hard spheres for studying jammed packings and point out the benefits of using soft potentials.