Related papers: Dynamic phase coexistence in glass-forming liquids
Complex behavior in glassforming liquids is associated with formation of a mosaic of different structures. Using bond order parameters together with topological characteristics of the bond network, we show that in the mosaic of crystalline…
Glassy systems are disordered systems characterized by extremely slow dynamics. Examples are supercooled liquids, whose dynamics slow down under cooling. The specific pattern of slowing-down depends on the material considered. This…
We numerically study the interplay between heterogeneous dynamics and properties of negatively curved regions of the potential energy surface in a model glassy system. We find that the unstable modes of saddles and quasi-saddles undergo a…
We study the steady state resulting from instabilities in crystals driven through a dissipative medium, for instance, a colloidal crystal which is steadily sedimenting through a viscous fluid. The problem involves two coupled fields, the…
The statistical mechanics of phase transitions in dense systems of polydisperse particles presents distinctive challenges to computer simulation and analytical theory alike. The core difficulty, namely dealing correctly with particle size…
Upon heating, ultrastable glassy films transform into liquids via a propagating equilibration front, resembling the heterogeneous melting of crystals. A microscopic understanding of this robust phenomenology is however lacking because…
Using large-scale molecular dynamics simulations for a system of $10^6$ particles, the response of a dense amorphous solid to the continuous expansion of its volume is investigated. We find that the spatially uniform glassy state becomes…
We introduce a microscopically realistic model of a physical gel and use computer simulations to study its static and dynamic properties at thermal equilibrium. The phase diagram comprises a sol phase, a coexistence region ending at a…
The dramatic slowdown of dynamics in supercooled liquids approaching the glass transition remains one of the central unresolved problems in condensed matter physics. We review approaches that attribute this slowdown to growing thermodynamic…
As the glass (in molecular fluids\cite{Donth}) or the jamming (in colloids and grains\cite{LiuNature1998}) transitions are approached, the dynamics slow down dramatically with no marked structural changes. Dynamical heterogeneity (DH) plays…
The microscopic dynamics of spontaneously aged and rejuvenated glassy Laponite is investigated through X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy. Two different behaviours of the intensity autocorrelation functions are observed depending on the…
The dynamics of steps on crystal surfaces is considered. In general, the meandering of the steps obeys a subdiffusive behaviour. The characteristic asymptotic time laws depend on the microscopic mechanism for detachment and attachment of…
We investigate the static and dynamic properties of a weakly polydisperse hard sphere system in the deeply supercooled state, i.e. at densities higher than that corresponding to the mode-coupling transition. The structural analysis reveals…
We find that a Lennard-Jones mixture displays a dynamic phase transition between an active regime and an inactive one. By means of molecular dynamics simulations and of a finite-size study, we show that the space time dynamics in the…
We report on the results of a molecular dynamics simulation study of binodal glassy systems, formed in the process of isochoric rapid quenching from a high-temperature fluid phase. The transition to vitreous state occurs due to concurrent…
We report an experimental investigation of the caging motion in a uniformly heated granular fluid, for a wide range of filling fractions, $\phi$. At low $\phi$ the classic diffusive behavior of a fluid is observed. However, as $\phi$ is…
The dynamical arrest of gels is the consequence of a well defined structural phase transition, leading to the formation of a spanning cluster of bonded particles. The dynamical glass transition, instead, is not accompanied by any clear…
We consider the dynamics of thin two-dimensional viscous droplets on chemically heterogeneous surfaces moving under the combined effects of slip, mass transfer and capillarity. The resulting long-wave evolution equation for the droplet…
We examine dynamic heterogeneities in a model glass-forming fluid, a binary harmonic sphere mixture, above and below the mode-coupling temperature T_c. We calculate the ensemble independent susceptibility chi_4(tau_alpha) and the dynamic…
Phase separation routinely occurs in both living and synthetic systems. These phases are often complex and distinguished by features including crystallinity, nematic order, and a host of other nonconserved order parameters. For systems at…