The structural origin of the hard-sphere glass transition in granular packing
Abstract
Glass transition is accompanied by a rapid growth of the structural relaxation time and a concomitant decrease of configurational entropy. It remains unclear whether the transition has a thermodynamic origin, and whether the dynamic arrest is associated with the growth of a certain static order. Using granular packing as a model hard-sphere glass, we show the glass transition as a thermodynamic phase transition with a "hidden" polytetrahedral order. This polytetrahedral order is spatially correlated with the slow dynamics. It is geometrically frustrated and has a peculiar fractal dimension. Additionally, as the packing fraction increases, its growth follows an entropy-driven nucleation process, similar to that of the random first-order transition theory. Our study essentially identifies a long-sought-after structural glass order in hard-sphere glasses.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1509.08615,
title = {The structural origin of the hard-sphere glass transition in granular packing},
author = {Chengjie Xia and Jindong Li and Yixin Cao and Binquan Kou and Xinaghui Xiao and Kamel Fezzaa and Tiqiao Xiao and Yujie Wang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1509.08615},
year = {2015}
}