Related papers: Logarithmic critical slowing down in complex syste…
We identify a new scenario for dynamical phase transitions associated with time-integrated observables occurring in diffusive systems described by the macroscopic fluctuation theory. It is characterized by the pairwise meeting of first- and…
We analyse numerically thermal fluctuations of the static overlap between equilibrium configurations in a glass-forming liquid approaching the glass transition. We find that the emergence of slow dynamics near the onset temperature…
The interrelation of dynamic processes active on separated time-scales in glasses and viscous liquids is investigated using a model displaying two time-scale bifurcations both between fast and secondary relaxation and between secondary and…
We use computer simulations to study the relaxation dynamics of a model for oil-in-water microemulsion droplets linked with telechelic polymers. This system exhibits both gel and glass phases and we show that the competition between these…
Decay to asymptotic steady state in one-dimensional logistic-like mappings is characterized by considering a phenomenological description supported by numerical simulations and confirmed by a theoretical description. As the control…
When we lower the temperature of a liquid, at some point we meet a first order phase transition to the crystal. Yet, under certain conditions it is possible to keep the system in its metastable phase and to avoid crystallization. In this…
The slow dynamics of a system as it approaches a phase transition, associated with the slowing down in the decay of a correlation function, can be caused by a sharp increase in the probability of a particle's returning to its original state…
Using computer simulations of an atomistic glass-forming liquid, we investigate the fluctuations of the overlap between a fluid configuration and a quenched reference system. We find that large fluctuations of the overlap develop as…
We study the statistical mechanics of supercooled liquids when the system evolves at a temperature $T$ with a field $\epsilon$ linearly coupled to its overlap with a reference configuration of the same liquid sampled at a temperature $T_0$.…
We derive an extension of the mode coupling theory for the liquid-glass transition to a class of models of confined fluids, where the fluid particles evolve in a disordered array of interaction sites. We find that the corresponding…
Bifurcations can cause dynamical systems with slowly varying parameters to transition to far-away attractors. The terms ``critical transition'' or ``tipping point'' have been used to describe this situation. Critical transitions have been…
Liquid crystals in two dimensions do not support long-ranged nematic order, but a quasi-nematic phase where the orientational correlations decay algebraically is possible. The transition from the isotropic to the quasi-nematic phase can be…
A general kind of models with hierarchically constrained dynamics is shown to exhibit logarithmic anomalous relaxation, similarly to a variety of complex strongly interacting materials. The logarithmic behavior describes most of the decay…
We provide a compact derivation of the static and dynamic equations for infinite-dimensional particle systems in the liquid and glass phases. The static derivation is based on the introduction of an "auxiliary" disorder and the use of the…
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…
Complex systems, which consist of a large number of interacting constituents, often exhibit universal behavior near a phase transition. A slowdown of certain dynamical observables is one such recurring feature found in a vast array of…
The coil-globule transition of an isolated polymer has been well established to be a second-order phase transition described by a standard tricritical O(0) field theory. We provide compelling evidence from Monte Carlo simulations in four…
The behaviour of uniform elastically isotropic compressible systems in critical and tricritical points is described in field-theoretical terms. Renormalizationgroup equations are analyzed for the case of three-dimensional systems in a…
We investigate the liquid-glass phase transition in a system of point-like particles interacting via a finite-range attractive potential in D-dimensional space. The phase transition is driven by an `entropy crisis' where the available phase…
The standard field-theoretical procedure to study the effect of long wavelength fluctuations on a genuine second-order phase transition is applied to the Mode-Coupling-Theory (MCT) dynamical singularity at $T_c$ in the $\beta$ regime.…