Related papers: Experimental Evidence for a Structural-Dynamical T…
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 perform extensive numerical simulations of a paradigmatic model glass former, the hard-sphere fluid with 10% polydispersity. We sample from the ensemble of trajectories with fixed observation time, whereby single trajectories are…
The glass transition, extensively studied in dense fluids, polymers, or colloids, corresponds to a dramatic evolution of equilibrium transport coefficients upon a modest change of control parameter, like temperature or pressure. A similar…
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…
In trajectory space, dynamical heterogeneities in glass-forming liquids correspond to the emergence of a dynamical phase transition between an active phase poor in local structure and an inactive phase which is rich in local structure. We…
Tackling the low-temperature fate of supercooled liquids is challenging due to the immense timescales involved, which prevent equilibration and lead to the operational glass transition. Relating glassy behaviour to an underlying,…
We consider the stationary state of a fluid comprised of inelastic hard spheres or disks under the influence of a random, momentum-conserving external force. Starting from the microscopic description of the dynamics, we derive a nonlinear…
Based on experimental evidences we present a phenomenological description of the thermal glass transition as a dynamical phase transition. Different susceptibilities calculated on the basis of this description are in good qualitative…
We consider the probability distribution for fluctuations in dynamical action and similar quantities related to dynamic heterogeneity. We argue that the so-called "glass transition" is a manifestation of low action tails in these…
We investigate structural and dynamical properties of moderately polydisperse emulsions across an extended range of droplet volume fractions phgr, encompassing fluid and glassy states up to jamming. Combining experiments and simulations, we…
Dense assemblies of self-propelled particles undergo a nonequilibrium form of glassy dynamics. Physical intuition suggests that increasing departure from equilibrium due to active forces fluidifies a glassy system. We falsify this belief by…
We use dynamic light scattering and computer simulations to study equilibrium dynamics and dynamic heterogeneity in concentrated suspensions of colloidal hard spheres. Our study covers an unprecedented density range and spans seven decades…
We study colloidal particle dynamics of a model glass system using confocal and fluorescence microscopy as the sample evolves from a hard-sphere glass to a liquid with attractive interparticle interactions. The transition from hard-sphere…
We show in numerical simulations that a system of two coupled replicas of a binary mixture of hard spheres undergoes a phase transition in equilibrium at a density slightly smaller than the glass transition density for an unreplicated…
In a dense colloidal suspension at a volume fraction slightly lower than that of its glass transition, we follow the trajectories of an assembly of tracers over a large time window. We define a local activity, which quantifies the local…
The East model has a dynamical phase transition between an active (fluid) and inactive (glass) state. We show that this phase transition generalizes to "softened" systems where constraint violations are allowed with small but finite…
Understanding glass formation is a challenge because the existence of a true glass state, distinct from liquid and solid, remains elusive: Glasses are liquids that have become too viscous to flow. An old idea, as yet unproven…
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…
Glasses and gels are the two dynamically arrested, disordered states of matter. Despite their importance, their similarities and differences remain elusive, especially at high density. We identify dynamical and structural signatures which…
Glass is a liquid that has lost its ability to flow. Why this particular substance undergoes its dramatic slowing down in kinetics while remaining barely distinguishable in structure from the fluid state upon cooling constitutes the central…