Related papers: Amorphous-amorphous transition and the two-step re…
We investigate the liquid-glass phase transition in a system of point-like particles interacting via a finite-range attractive potential in D-dimensional space. The phase transition is driven by an `entropy crisis' where the available phase…
Amorphous solids are ubiquitous among natural and man-made materials. Often used as structural materials for their attractive mechanical properties, their utility depends critically on their response to applied stresses. Processes…
In this talk I will review the approach to spin glasses based on the spontaneously broken replica symmetry. I will concentrate my attention mostly on more general ideas, skipping technical details and stressing the characteristic…
The glass transition of mesoscopic charged particles in two-dimensional confinement is studied by mode-coupling theory. We consider two types of effective interactions between the particles, corresponding to two different models for the…
In this chapter, we discuss avalanches in glasses and disordered systems, and the macroscopic dynamical behavior that they mediate. We briefly review three classes of systems where avalanches are observed: depinning transition of disordered…
We provide a theoretical perspective on the glass transition in molecular liquids at thermal equilibrium, on the spatially heterogeneous and aging dynamics of disordered materials, and on the rheology of soft glassy materials. We start with…
In this topical review we discuss the nature of the low-temperature phase in both infinite-ranged and short-ranged spin glasses. We analyze the meaning of pure states in spin glasses, and distinguish between physical, or ``observable'',…
An one-step replica-symmetry-breaking solution for finite connectivity spin-glass models with K body interaction is constructed at finite temperature using the replica method and thermodynamic constraints. In the absence of external fields,…
We consider mean-field vector spin glasses with possibly non-convex interactions. Up to a small perturbation of the parameters defining the model, the asymptotic behavior of the Gibbs measure is described in terms of a critical point of an…
Liquid polyamorphism is the intriguing possibility for a single component substance to exist in multiple liquid phases. We propose a minimal model for this phenomenon. Starting with a binary lattice model with critical azeotropy and…
The role of reflection symmetry breaking for the character of the appearance of replica symmetric spin glass state is investigated. We establish the following symmetry rule for classical systems with one order parameter in the replica…
In a $p$-spin interaction spherical spin-glass model both the spins and the couplings are allowed to change in the course of time. The spins are coupled to a heat bath with temperature $T$, while the coupling constants are coupled to a bath…
A disordered spin model suitable for studying inverse freezing in fragile glass-forming systems is introduced. The model is a microscopic realization of the ``random-first order'' scenario in which the glass transition can be either…
Apart from not having crystallized, supercooled liquids can be considered as being properly equilibrated and thus can be described by a few thermodynamic control variables. In contrast, glasses and other amorphous solids can be arbitrarily…
We devise a field theoretical formalism for a microscopic theory of nucleation processes and phase coexistence in finite dimensional glassy systems. We study disordered $p$-spin models with large but finite range of interaction. We work in…
Amorphous solids exhibit intrinsic, local structural transitions, that give rise to the well known quantum-mechanical two-level systems at low temperatures. We explain the microscopic origin of the electric dipole moment of these two-level…
We introduce a new disordered system, the Super-Potts model, which is a more frustrated version of the Potts glass. Its elementary degrees of freedom are variables that can take M values and are coupled via pair-wise interactions. Its exact…
We study the localization in the one-dimensional trap model in terms of statistical mechanics of trajectories. By numerically investigating overlap between trajectories of two particles on a common disordered potential, we find that there…
A theoretical analysis [Angelani et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 065702 (2006)] predicts glassy behaviour of light in a nonlinear random medium. This implies slow dynamics related to the presence of many metastable states. We consider very…
We study the yielding transition of a two dimensional amorphous system under shear by using a mesoscopic elasto-plastic model. The model combines a full (tensorial) description of the elastic interactions in the system, and the possibility…