Related papers: Tetrahedrality dictates dynamics in hard spheres
A central question in dynamics is whether the topology of a system determines its geometry. This is known as rigidity. Under mild topological conditions rigidity holds for many classical cases, including: Kleinian groups, circle…
Glasses are solid materials whose constituent atoms are arranged in a disordered manner. The transition from a liquid to a glass remains one of the most poorly understood phenomena in condensed matter physics, and still no fully microscopic…
We summarize a theoretical framework based on global time-reparametrization invariance that explains the origin of dynamic fluctuations in glassy systems. We introduce the main ideas without getting into much technical details. We describe…
We investigate the dynamics of spin glasses from the `rheological' point of view, in which aging is suppressed by the action of small, non-conservative forces. The different features can be expressed in terms of the scaling of relaxation…
Glasses and gels, widely encountered amorphous solids with diverse industrial and everyday applications, share intriguing similarities such as rigidity without crystalline order and dynamic slowing down during aging. However, the underlying…
The glass transition is considered within two toys models, a mean field spin glass and a directed polymer in a correlated random potential. In the spin glass model there occurs a dynamical transition, where the system condenses in a state…
We show that the dynamics between inherent structures in glass forming systems can be understood in purely dynamical terms, without any reference to ``topographic'' features of the potential energy landscape. This ``non-topographic''…
Theoretical challenges in understanding the nature of glass and the glass transition remain significant open questions in statistical and condensed matter physics. As a prototypical example of complex physical systems, glasses and the…
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…
The correlation between local structure and the propensity for structural rearrangements has been widely investigated in glass forming liquids and glasses. In this paper we use the excess two-body entropy $S_2$ and tetrahedrality $\n_{tet}$…
Over times shorter than that required for relaxation of enthalpy, a liquid can exhibit striking heterogeneities. The picture of these heterogeneities is complex with transient patches of rigidity, irregular yet persistent, intersected by…
We vary the amplitude of the long-range Coulomb forces within a classical potential describing a model silica glass and study the consequences on the structure and dynamics of the glass, via molecular dynamics simulations. This model allows…
Glasses produced via physical vapor deposition can display greater kinetic stability and lower enthalpy than glasses prepared by liquid cooling. While the reduced enthalpy has often been used as a measure of the stability, it is not obvious…
Glass-forming liquids grow dramatically sluggish upon cooling. This slowdown has long been thought to be accompanied by a growing correlation length. Characteristic dynamical and static length scales, however, have been observed to grow at…
A fundamental characteristic of matter is its ability to form ordered structures under the right thermodynamic conditions. Predicting these structures - and their properties - from the attributes of a material's building blocks is the holy…
Mixing theoretical topological structures with cutting-edge simulation methods, a recent study in Nature Communications has finally confirmed the existence of topological defects in glasses and their crucial role for plasticity.
Dynamic heterogeneity is now recognised as a central aspect of structural relaxation in disordered materials with slow dynamics, and was the focus of intense research in the last decade. Here we describe how initial, indirect observations…
While multiple time scales generally arise in the dynamics of disordered systems, we find multiple time scales in absence of disorder, in a simple model with hard local constraints. The dynamics of the model, which consists of local…
Slow dynamics in a fluid are studied in one of the most basic systems possible: polydisperse hard spheres. Monodisperse hard spheres cannot be studied as the slow down in dynamics as the density is increased is preempted by crystallisation.…
A current focus in studies of the glass transition is the role of dynamic heterogeneities. Although these efforts may clarify the origin of the spectacular change in properties of liquids approaching vitrification, we point out that a…