Related papers: Deconstructing the glass transition through critic…
The random first-order transition (RFOT) theory of the structural glass transition is reviewed in a pedagogical fashion. The rigidity that emerges in crystals and glassy liquids is of the same fundamental origin. In both cases, it…
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…
We use theory and simulations to investigate the existence of amorphous glassy states in ultrasoft colloids. We combine the hyper-netted chain approximation with mode-coupling theory to study the dynamic phase diagram of soft repulsive…
Exploring structural order in disordered systems including liquids and glasses is an intriguing but challenging issue in condensed matter physics. Here we construct a new parameter based on the angular distribution function of particles and…
Yielding of amorphous glasses and gels is a mechanically driven transformation of a material from the solid to liquid state on the experimental timescale. It is a ubiquitous fundamental problem of nonequilibrium physics of high importance…
The aging dynamics of a colloidal glass has been studied by multiangle Dynamic Light Scattering, Neutron Spin Echo, X-ray Photon Correlation Spectroscopy and Molecular Dynamics simulations. The two relaxation processes, microscopic (fast)…
The starting point of the present work is the observation of possible analogies, both at the phenomenological and at the methodological level, between the subcritical transition to turbulence and the glass transition. Having recalled the…
The glass transition of supercooled fluids is a particular challenge for computer simulation, because the (longest) relaxation times increase by about 15 decades upon approaching the transition temperature T_g. Brute-force molecular…
Glass-forming liquids have been extensively studied in recent decades, but there is still no theory that fully describes these systems, and the diversity of treatments is in itself a barrier to understanding. Here we introduce a new simple…
The fragile-to-strong glass transition is a fascinating phenomenon that still presents many theoretical and experimental challenges. A major one is how to tune the fragility of a glass-forming liquid. Here, we study a two-dimensional (2D)…
Dense suspensions of particles are relevant to many applications and are a key platform for developing a fundamental physics of out-of-equilibrium systems. They present challenging flow properties, apparently turning from liquid to solid…
Motivated by old experiments on colloidal suspensions, we report molecular dynamics simulations of assemblies of hard spheres, addressing crystallization and glass formation. The simulations cover wide ranges of polydispersity s (standard…
In 1992 a puzzling transition was discovered in simulations of randomly coupled limit-cycle oscillators. This so-called volcano transition has resisted analysis ever since. It was originally conjectured to mark the emergence of an…
Ultrasoft colloids typically do not spontaneously crystallize, but rather vitrify, at high concentrations. Combining in-situ rheo-SANS experiments and numerical simulations we show that shear facilitates crystallization of colloidal star…
Finite-dimensional signatures of spinodal criticality are notoriously difficult to come by. The dynamical transition of glass-forming liquids, first described by mode-coupling theory, is a spinodal instability preempted by thermally…
A glass is a non-equilibrium thermodynamic state whose physical properties depend on time. Glass formation from the melt, as well as the inverse process of liquid structural recovery from the glass are non-equilibrium processes. A positive…
These are exciting times for studies of galaxy formation and the growth of structures. New observatories and advanced simulations are revolutionising our understanding of the cycling of matter into, through, and out of galaxies. This…
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…
We present molecular dynamics (MD) simulations results for dense fluids of ultrasoft, fully-penetrable particles. These are a binary mixture and a polydisperse system of particles interacting via the generalized exponential model, which is…
This study introduces a modeling approach aimed at elucidating the pivotal role of symmetry in phase transitions, focusing specifically on the isotropic-nematic (I-N) transition characteristic of liquid crystal systems. By leveraging…