Related papers: Low-energy quasilocalized excitations in structura…
The glass transition refers to the non-equilibrium process by which an equilibrium liquid is transformed to a non-equilibrium disordered solid, or vice versa. Associated response functions, such as heat capacities, are markedly different on…
We use the ``isoconfigurational ensemble'' [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 93}, 135701 (2004)] to analyze both dynamical and structural properties in simulations of a glass forming molecular liquid. We show that spatially correlated clusters of low…
Network glasses are the physical prototype for many self-organized systems, ranging from proteins to computer science. Conventional theories of gases, liquids, and crystals do not account for the strongly material-selective character of the…
Amorphous solids, and many disordered lattices, exhibit a remarkable qualitative and quantitative universality in their acoustic properties at temperature $\lesssim 3$K. This phenomenon is attributed to the existence of tunneling two level…
Crystalline calcium-aluminates include the phases essential in the setting of Portland cements developed over the last century. It is only within recent decades, however, that calcium-aluminate melts and glasses have begun to attract…
The density of Two-level systems (TLS) controls the low-temperature thermal properties in glasses and has been found to be almost depleted in ultrastable glasses. While this depletion of TLS is thought to have a close relationship with the…
In glasses, atomic disorder combined with atomic connectivity makes understanding of the nature of the vibrations much more complex than in crystals or molecules. With a simple model, however, it is possible to show how disorder generates…
We numerically study the evolution of the vibrational density of states $D(\omega)$ of zero-temperature glasses when their kinetic stability is varied over an extremely broad range, ranging from poorly annealed glasses obtained by…
Glasses and disordered materials are known to display anomalous features in the density of states, in the specific heat and in thermal transport. Nevertheless, in recent years, the question whether these properties are really anomalous (and…
It is now well established that glasses feature quasilocalized nonphononic excitations --- coined "soft spots"---, which follow a universal $\omega^4$ density of states in the limit of low frequencies $\omega$. All glass-specific…
Low-energy excitations play a key role in all condensed-matter systems, yet there is limited understanding of their nature in glasses, where they correspond to local rearrangements of groups of particles. Here we introduce an algorithm to…
We characterized the structural and dynamical properties of the quasi-liquid layer (QLL) at the surface of ice by molecular dynamics simulations with a thermodynamically consistent water model. Our simulations show that for three low-index…
Glasses are amorphous solids whose constituent particles are caged by their neighbors and thus cannot flow. This sluggishness is often ascribed to the free energy landscape containing multiple minima (basins) separated by high barriers.…
Our lives are surrounded by a rich assortment of disordered materials. In particular, glasses are well known as dense, amorphous materials, whereas gels exist in low-density, disordered states. Recent progress has provided a significant…
A hallmark of structural glasses and other disordered solids is the emergence of excess low-frequency vibrations, on top of the Debye spectrum $D_{\rm Debye}(\omega)$ of phonons ($\omega$ denotes the vibrational frequency), which exist in…
Many structural glasses feature static and dynamic mechanical properties that can depend strongly on glass formation history. The degree of universality of this history-dependence, and what it is possibly affected by, are largely…
Atomic vibrations in perfect, slightly defective or mixed crystals are to a large extent well understood since many decades. Theoretical descriptions are thus in excellent agreement with the experiments. As a consequence, phonon-related…
Recent experimental results showing untypical nonlinear absorption and marked deviations from well known universality in the low temperature acoustic and dielectric losses in amorphous solids prove the need for improving the understanding…
We review the anomalous behavior of solid He-4 at low temperatures with particular attention to the role of structural defects present in solid. The discussion centers around the possible role of two level systems and structural glassy…
Glasses have a large excess of low-frequency vibrational modes in comparison with crystalline solids. We show that such a feature is a necessary consequence of the geometry generic to weakly connected solids. In particular, we analyze the…