Related papers: A Topologically Driven Glass in Ring Polymers
We present a molecular dynamics study of the influence of knot complexity and molecular mass on glass formation upon cooling in knotted ring polymer melts. We find that cooperative motion, rigidity, and glassy dynamics can be tuned over a…
Blends of polymers of different topologies, such as ring and supercoiled, naturally occur in biology and often exhibit emergent viscoelastic properties coveted in industry. However, due to their complexity, along with the difficulty of…
Pinning a fraction of particles from an equilibrium configuration in supercooled liquids has been recently proposed as a way to induce a new kind of glass transition, the Random Pinning Glass Transition (RPGT). The RPGT has been predicted…
Within the framework of the mode-coupling theory of super-cooled liquids, we investigate new phenomena in colloidal systems on approach to their glass transitions. When the inter-particle potential contains an attractive part, besides the…
We derive a mode-coupling theory for the slow dynamics of fluids confined in disordered porous media represented by spherical particles randomly placed in space. Its equations display the usual nonlinear structure met in this theoretical…
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,…
Aspects of the dynamical glass transition are considered within a mean field spin glass model. At the dynamical transition the the system condenses in a state of lower entropy. The difference, the information entropy or complexity, is…
In many interesting physical settings, such as the vulcanization of rubber, the introduction of permanent random constraints between the constituents of a homogeneous fluid can cause a phase transition to a random solid state. In this…
The glass transition is the most enduring grand-challenge problem in contemporary condensed matter physics. Here, we review the contribution of colloid experiments to our understanding of this problem. First, we briefly outline the success…
Polymers adopt extended coil and compact globule states according to the balance between entropy and interaction energies. The transition of a polymer between an extended coil state and compact globule state can be induced by changing…
Previous theoretical, along with early simulation and experimental, studies have indicated that particles with a short-ranged attraction exhibit a range of new dynamical arrest phenomena. These include very pronounced reentrance in the…
Unconcatenated, unknotted polymer rings in the melt are subject to strong interactions with neighboring chains due to the presence of topological constraints. We study this by computer simulation using the bond-fluctuation algorithm for…
Polymers in a melt may be subject to topological constraints, as in the example of unlinked polymer rings. How to do statistical mechanics in the presence of such constraints remains a fundamental open problem. We study the effect of…
Identifying the conditions under which glass formation occurs is crucial for a fundamental understanding of the glass transition mechanism. Pure liquids devoid of any frustration avoid glass transition and undergo crystallization. In this…
An equilibrated model glass-forming liquid is studied by mapping successive configurations produced by molecular dynamics simulation onto a time series of inherent structures (local minima in the potential energy). Using this ``inherent…
Advances in controlled polymerization have enabled the synthesis of mechanically interlocked polymers like molecular knots and linear[n]catenane. These aesthetic macromolecules with unique topological constraints in the form of mechanical…
The statistical mechanics of a long knotted collapsed polymer is determined by a free-energy with a knot-dependent subleading term, which is linked to the length of the shortest polymer that can hold such knot. The only other parameter…
A molecular dynamics simulation of SPC/E water confined in a Silica pore is presented. The pore has been constructed to reproduce the average properties of a pore of Vycor glass. Due to the confinement and to the presence of a strong…
Kinetically constrained spin systems play an important role in understanding key properties of the dynamics of slowly relaxing materials, such as glasses. So far kinetic constraints have been introduced in idealised models aiming to capture…
Free surfaces in glassy polymer films are known to induce surface mobile layers with enhanced dynamics. Using molecular dynamics simulations of a bead-spring model, we study a wide variety of layer-resolved structural and dynamical…