Related papers: Nonperturbative fluctuations and metastability in …
We review an scenario for the non-equilibrium dynamics of glassy systems that has been motivated by the exact solution of simple models. This approach allows one to set on firmer grounds well-known phenomenological theories. The old ideas…
A system is glassy when the observation time is much smaller than the equilibration time. A unifying thermodynamic picture of the glassy state is presented. Slow configurational modes are in quasi-equilibrium at an effective temperature. It…
The element of metastability is incorporated in the fluctuating nonlinear hydrodynamic description of the mode coupling theory (MCT) of the liquid-glass transition. This is achieved through the introduction of the defect density variable…
We show the existence of intermittent dynamics in one of the simplest model of a glassy system: the two-state model, which has been used to explain the origin of the violation of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem. The dynamics is analyzed…
Mean-field theories of the glass transition predict a phase transition to a dynamically arrested state, yet no such transition is observed in experiments or simulations of finite-dimensional systems. We resolve this long-standing…
Fluctuation theorems are fundamental extensions of the second law of thermodynamics for small nonequilibrium systems. While work and heat are equally important forms of energy exchange, fluctuation relations have not been experimentally…
We analyze the validity of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem for slow relaxation systems in the context of mesoscopic nonequilibrium thermodynamics. We demonstrate that the violation arises as a natural consequence of the elimination of…
Fluctuating hydrodynamics is used to describe the total energy fluctuations of a freely evolving gas of inelastic hard spheres near the threshold of the clustering instability. They are shown to be governed by vorticity fluctuations only,…
We study the low temperature dynamics of a two dimensional short-range spin system with uniform ferromagnetic interactions, which displays glassiness at low temperatures despite the absence of disorder or frustration. The model has a dual…
We test a hypothesis for the origin of dynamical heterogeneity in slowly relaxing systems, namely that it emerges from soft (Goldstone) modes associated with a broken continuous symmetry under time reparametrizations. We do this by…
In this talk I review some recent developments which shed light on the main connections between structural glasses and mean-field spin glass models with a discontinuous transition. I also discuss the role of quantum fluctuations on the…
Measuring, characterizing and modelling the slow dynamics of glassy soft matter is a great challenge, with an impact that ranges from industrial applications to fundamental issues in modern statistical physics, such as the glass transition…
Fluctuation theorems are a generalization of thermodynamics on small scales and provide the tools to characterize the fluctuations of thermodynamic quantities in non-equilibrium nanoscale systems. They are particularly important for…
In this paper we expand our previous investigation of a quantum particle subject to the action of a random potential plus a fixed harmonic potential at a finite temperature T. In the classical limit the system reduces to a well-known…
Stationary non-equilibrium states describe steady flows through macroscopic systems. Although they represent the simplest generalization of equilibrium states, they exhibit a variety of new phenomena. Within a statistical mechanics…
The aim of this report is to review a theoretical approach that has been proposed recently to describe dynamic fluctuations in glassy systems (work in collaboration with H. Castillo, C. Chamon, P. Charbonneau, J. L. Iguain, M. Kennett, D.…
The glass transition is considered within two toys models, a mean field spin glass and a directed polymer in a correlated random potential. In the spin glass model there occurs a dynamical transition, where the system condenses in a state…
These lecture notes can be read in two ways. The first two Sections contain a review of the phenomenology of several physical systems with slow nonequilibrium dynamics. In the Conclusions we summarize the scenario derived from the solution…
We construct a functional renormalisation group for thermal fluctuations. Thermal resummations are naturally built in, and the infrared problem of thermal fluctuations is well under control. The viability of the approach is exemplified for…
The general fluctuation theory is reviewed with special attention to the role played by different ensembles, and is extended to incorporate stationary metastable states obtained in the long time limit. The fluctuation in a quantity depends…