Related papers: Cluster structure and dynamics in gels and glasses
We compare the slow dynamics of irreversible gels, colloidal gels, glasses and spin glasses by analyzing the behavior of the so called non-linear dynamical susceptibility, a quantity usually introduced to quantitatively characterize the…
Dynamical heterogeneities in a colloidal fluid close to gelation are studied by means of computer simulations. A clear distinction between some fast particles and the rest, slow ones, is observed, yielding a picture of the gel composed by…
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…
We study a model in which particles interact with short-ranged attractive and long-ranged repulsive interactions, in an attempt to model the equilibrium cluster phase recently discovered in sterically stabilized colloidal systems in the…
Using computer simulations, we identify the mechanisms causing aggregation and structural arrest of colloidal suspensions interacting with a short-ranged attraction at moderate and high densities. Two different non-ergodicity transitions…
We show how dynamical heterogeneities in glass forming systems emerge as a consequence of the existence of dynamical constraints, and we offer an interpretation of the glass transition as an entropy crisis in trajectory space (space-time)…
The dynamical glass transition is typically taken to be the temperature at which a glassy liquid is no longer able to equilibrate on experimental timescales. Consequently, the physical properties of these systems just above or below the…
Recent theories predict that when a supercooled liquid approaches the glass transition, particle clusters with a special "amorphous order" nucleate within the liquid, which lead to static correlations dictating the dramatic slowdown of…
A theoretical and numerically study of dynamical properties in the sol-gel transition is presented. In particular, the complex phenomenology observed experimentally and numerically in gelling systems is reproduced in the framework of…
A discrete--dynamics model, which is specified solely in terms of the system's equilibrium structure, is defined for the density correlators of a simple fluid. This model yields results for the evolution of glassy dynamics which are…
A new class of lattice gas models with trivial interactions but constrained dynamics are introduced. These are proven to exhibit a dynamical glass transition: above a critical density, rho_c, ergodicity is broken due to the appearance of an…
We conduct a numerical study of the dynamical behavior of a system of three-dimensional crosses, particles that consist of three mutually perpendicular line segments rigidly joined at their midpoints. In an earlier study [W. van Ketel et…
We study the role of elasticity-induced facilitation on the dynamics of glass-forming liquids by a coarse-grained two-dimensional model in which local relaxation events, taking place by thermal activation, can trigger new relaxations by…
Using molecular dynamics computer simulations we investigate the structural and dynamical properties of a simple model for a colloidal gel at low volume fraction. We find that at low T the system is forming an open percolating cluster,…
We study the formation of a colloidal gel by means of Molecular Dynamics simulations of a model for colloidal suspensions. A slowing down with gel-like features is observed at low temperatures and low volume fractions, due to the formation…
The most puzzling aspect of the glass transition observed in laboratory is an apparent decoupling of dynamics from structure. In this paper we recount the implication of various theories of glass transition for the static correlation length…
We review a theoretical perspective of the dynamics of glass forming liquids and the glass transition. It is a perspective we have developed with our collaborators during this decade. It is based upon the structure of trajectory space. This…
We identify a link between the glass transition and percolation of mobile regions in configuration space. We find that many hallmarks of glassy dynamics, for example stretched-exponential response functions and a diverging structural…
Systems in which a short-ranged attraction and long-ranged repulsion compete are intrinsically frustrated, leading their structure and dynamics to be dominated either by mesoscopic order or by metastable disorder. Here we report the latter…
Particles in structural glasses rattle around temporary equilibriumpositions, that seldom change through a process which is much faster than the relaxation time, known as particle jump. Since the relaxation of the system is due to the…