Geometric interpretation of pre-vitrification in hard sphere liquids
Abstract
We derive a microscopic criterion for the stability of hard sphere configurations, and we show empirically that this criterion is marginally satisfied in the glass. This observation supports a geometric interpretation for the initial rapid rise of viscosity with packing fraction, or pre-vitrification. It also implies that barely stable soft modes characterize the glass structure, whose spatial extension is estimated. We show that both the short-term dynamics and activation processes occur mostly along those soft modes, and we study some implications of these observations. This article synthesizes new and previous results [C. Brito and M. Wyart, Euro. Phys. Letters, {\bf 76}, 149-155, (2006) and C. Brito and M. Wyart, J. Stat. Mech., L08003 (2007) ] in a unified view.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0903.0148,
title = {Geometric interpretation of pre-vitrification in hard sphere liquids},
author = {Carolina Brito and Matthieu Wyart},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0903.0148},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
accepted for publication in the Journal of Chemical Physics (added discussion on RCP and ideal glass transition)