Related papers: On the Dynamics of Glassy Systems
The interrelation of dynamic processes active on separated time-scales in glasses and viscous liquids is investigated using a model displaying two time-scale bifurcations both between fast and secondary relaxation and between secondary and…
A scenario for systems with slow dynamics is characterised by stating that there are several temperatures coexisting in the sample, with a single temperature shared by all observables at each (widely separate) time-scale. In preparation for…
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…
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…
When liquids are classified using Tg -scaled Arrhenius plots of relaxation times (or relative rates of entropy increase above Tg) across a "strong-fragile" spectrum of behaviors, the "strong" liquids have always appeared rather…
Recent numerical simulations of a disordered system (Preprint arXiv:condmat/0307554) have shown the existence of two different relaxational processes (called stimulated and spontaneous) characterizing the relaxation observed in structural…
Soft Glassy Materials (SGM) consist in dense amorphous assemblies of colloidal particles of multiple shapes, elasticity, and interactions, which confer upon them solid-like properties at rest. They are ubiquitously encountered in modern…
We discuss the microscopic mechanisms by which low-temperature amorphous states, such as ultrastable glasses, transform into equilibrium fluids, after a sudden temperature increase. Experiments suggest that this process is similar to the…
Glasses are traditionally characterized by their rugged landscape of disordered low-energy states and their slow relaxation towards thermodynamic equilibrium. Far from equilibrium, dynamical forms of glassy behavior with anomalous algebraic…
When a liquid is cooled below its melting temperature it usually crystallizes. However, if the quenching rate is fast enough, it is possible that the system remains in a disordered state, progressively losing its fluidity upon further…
Controlling the mechanical response of soft glassy materials, such as emulsions, foams, and colloidal suspensions, is key for many industrial processes. While their steady-state flow behavior is reasonably well understood, their response to…
We present numerical simulations of a model of cellulose consisting of long stiff rods, representing cellulose microfibrils, connected by stretchable crosslinks, representing xyloglucan molecules, hydrogen bonded to the microfibrils. Within…
This thesis sums up the research work I performed as a PhD student in Sapienza Universit\`a di Roma, and \'Ecole Normale Sup\'erieure, Paris, under the joint supervision of Prof. Giorgio Parisi and Dr. Francesco Zamponi. The thesis focuses…
Supercooled liquids are metastable states realized by suppressing crystallization below the melting temperature. While it is well established that their dynamics slow down dramatically and become spatially heterogeneous upon cooling, the…
We study the glass transition by exploring a broad class of kinetic rules that can significantly modify the normal dynamics of super-cooled liquids, while maintaining thermal equilibrium. Beyond the usual dynamics of liquids, this class…
The dynamical properties of the site frustrated percolation model are investigated and compared with those of glass forming liquids. When the density of the particles on the lattice becomes high enough, the dynamics of the model becomes…
Our theoretical understanding of glassy dynamics is notoriously incomplete, and it is even more so when the glassy systems are driven out of equilibrium. An extreme way to drive a system out of equilibrium is to introduce nonequilibrium…
In a preceding paper, Mukhopadhyay and I studied the diffusive motion of a tagged molecule in a heterogeneous glass-forming liquid at temperatures just above a glass transition. Among other features of this system, we postulated a relation…
Building on the recently derived inhomogeneous mode-coupling theory, we extend the generalised mode-coupling theory of supercooled liquids to inhomogeneous environments. This provides a first-principles-based, systematic and rigorous way of…
The description of molecular motion by macroscopic hydrodynamics has a long and continuing history. The Stokes-Einstein relation between the diffusion coefficient of a solute and the solvent viscosity predicted using macroscopic continuum…