Related papers: Microscopic dynamics of supercooled liquids from f…
We consider the effect of droplet excitations in the random first order transition theory of glasses on the configurational entropy. The contribution of these excitations is estimated both at and above the ideal glass transition…
Hierarchical dynamics in glass-forming systems span multiple timescales, from fast vibrations to slow structural rearrangements, appearing in both supercooled fluids and glassy states. Understanding how these diverse processes interact…
We show that the various crossovers between dynamical regimes observed in experiments and simulations of supercooled liquids can be explained in simple terms from the existence and statistical properties of dynamical heterogeneities. We…
Predicting the thermal conductivity of glasses from first principles has hitherto been a prohibitively complex problem. In fact, past works have highlighted challenges in achieving computational convergence with respect to length and/or…
Based on experimental evidences we present a phenomenological description of the thermal glass transition as a dynamical phase transition. Different susceptibilities calculated on the basis of this description are in good qualitative…
Supercooled liquids display fascinating properties upon cooling such as the emergence of dynamic length scales. Different models strongly vary with respect to the choice of the elementary subsystems (CRR) as well as their mutual coupling.…
We review recent developments in structural-dynamical phase transitions in trajectory space. An open question is how the dynamic facilitation theory of the glass transition may be reconciled with thermodynamic theories that posit a…
Driven granular systems readily form glassy phases at high particle volume fractions and low driving amplitudes. We use computer simulations of a driven granular glass to evidence a re-entrance melting transition into a fluid state, which,…
Supercooled liquids are sometimes described as being composed of a mosaic of patches that may be listed in a `library', each one having some form of non-periodic order. Looking closer, one finds this construction elusive. In attempting to…
Extending mode-coupling theory, we elaborate a microscopic theory for the glass transition of liquids confined between two parallel flat hard walls. The theory contains the standard MCT equations in bulk and in two dimensions as limiting…
In these lectures, which were presented at "Soft and Fragile Matter, Nonequilibrium Dynamics, Metastability and Flow" University of St. Andrews, 8 July - 22 July, 1999, I give an introduction to the physics of supercooled liquids and…
The inherent structure approach, wherein thermodynamic and structural changes in glass forming liquids are analyzed in terms of local potential energy minima that the liquid samples, has recently been applied extensively to the study of…
Given the vast differences in interaction details, describing the dynamics of structurally disordered materials in a unified theoretical framework presents a fundamental challenge to condensed-matter physics and materials science. Here, we…
This paper is an introduction to some of the main present issues in the theory of structural glasses. After recalling a few experimental facts, it gives a short account of the analogy between fragile glasses and the mean field discontinuous…
The study of spin-glass dynamics, long considered the paradigmatic complex system, has reached important milestones. The availability of single crystals has allowed the experimental measurement of spin-glass coherence lengths of almost…
In recent papers, we have argued that kinetically constrained coarse grained models can be applied to understand dynamic properties of glass forming materials, and we have used this approach in various applications that appear to validate…
Glass formation is one of the most interesting phenomena in the condensed matter field. Considerable effort has gone into understanding and predicting the glass formability. However, the previous prediction requires the glass first made…
Glass is an under-cooled liquid that very slowly relaxes towards the equilibrium crystalline state. Its energy balance is ill understood, since it is widely believed that the glassy state cannot be described thermodynamically. However, the…
The configurational entropy is an indispensable tool to describe super-cooled liquids near the glass transition. Its calculation requires the enumeration of the basins in the potential energy landscape and when available, it reveals a…
We describe our perspective on the Structural Glass Transition (SGT) problem built on the premise that a viable theory must provide a consistent picture of the dynamics and statics, which are manifested by large increase in shear viscosity…