Related papers: Glassy behavior in systems with Kac-type step-func…
We construct a mean field theory for the lattice model of a structural glass and solve it using the replica method and one step replica symmetry breaking ansatz; this theory becomes exact in the limit of infinite dimensions. Analyzing…
Using Monte Carlo simulations we show that the three-dimensional Ising model with four-spin (plaquette) interactions has some characteristic glassy features. The model dynamically generates diverging energy barriers, which give rise to slow…
Dense active systems are widespread in nature, examples range from bacterial colonies to biological tissues. Dense clusters of active particles can be obtained by increasing the packing fraction of the system or taking advantage of a…
The state-following technique allows the study of metastable glassy states under external perturbations. Here we show how this construction can be used to study the behavior of glassy states of Hard Spheres in infinite dimensions under…
We study the glass formation in two- and three-dimensional Ising and Heisenberg spin systems subject to competing interactions and uniaxial anisotropy with a mean-field approach. In three dimensions, for sufficiently strong anisotropy the…
We study a few-body system composed of self-propelling camphor surfers confined within a circular boundary. These millimeter-sized particles move in a regime where inertia and long-ranged interactions play a significant role, leading to…
We consider the zero-temperature dynamics for the infinite-range, non translation invariant one-dimensional spin model introduced by Marinari, Parisi and Ritort to generate glassy behaviour out of a deterministic interaction. It is shown…
The complex dynamics of an increasing number of systems is attributed to the emergence of a rugged energy landscape with an exponential number of metastable states. To develop this picture into a predictive dynamical theory I discuss how to…
In an effort to understand the glass transition, the dynamics of a non-randomly frustrated spin model has been analyzed. The phenomenology of the spin model is similar to that of a supercooled liquid undergoing the glass transition. The…
This Ph.D. thesis is divided in two parts. The first one concerns the equilibrium properties of glassy systems. Some aspects of the phenomenology of glasses and of theories attempting to describe them are reviewed in chapter 1. A study of…
When classical systems fail to explore their entire configurational space, intriguing macroscopic phenomena like aging and glass formation may emerge. Also closed quanto-mechanical systems may stop wandering freely around the whole Hilbert…
Liquids relax extremely slowly upon approaching the glass state. One explanation is that an entropy crisis, due to the rarefaction of available states, makes it increasingly arduous to reach equilibrium in that regime. Validating this…
We review the use of kinetically constrained models (KCMs) for the study of dynamics in glassy systems. The characteristic feature of KCMs is that they have trivial, often non-interacting, equilibrium behaviour but interesting slow dynamics…
Particles undergoing Fickian diffusion within smooth energy landscapes exhibit Gaussian statistics. However, this Gaussian behavior is often elusive in complex liquids, where particle dynamics within spontaneously fluctuating or…
The transition into a glassy state of the ensemble of static, mechanically stable configurations of a tapped granular pile is explored using extensive molecular dynamics simulations. We show that different horizontal sub-regions ("layers")…
We show that the standard Fermi--Pasta--Ulam system, with a suitable choice for the interparticle potential, constitutes a model for glasses, and indeed an extremely simple and manageable one. Indeed, it allows one to describe the landscape…
We present a simple mathematical model of glassy dynamics seen as a random walk in a directed, weighted network of minima taken as a representation of the energy landscape. Our approach gives a broader perspective to previous studies…
We examine the structural relaxation of glassy materials at finite temperatures, considering the effect of activated rearrangements and long-range elastic interactions. Our three-dimensional mesoscopic relaxation model shows how the…
At low temperatures the configurational phase space of a macroscopic complex system (e.g., a spin-glass) of $N\sim 10^{23}$ interacting particles may split into an exponential number $\Omega_s \sim \exp({\rm const} \times N)$ of ergodic…
A large class of technically non-chaotic systems, involving scatterings of light particles by flat surfaces with sharp boundaries, is nonetheless characterized by complex random looking motion in phase space. For these systems one may…