Related papers: Ideal Glasses and Protein Network Dynamics

We introduce simple models, inspired by previous models for froths and covalent glasses, with trivial equilibrium properties but dynamical behaviour characteristic of strong glass forming systems. These models are also a generalization of…

The dynamical properties and mechanical functions of amorphous materials are governed by their microscopic structures, particularly the elasticity of the interaction networks, which is generally complicated by structural heterogeneity. This…

Mechanical properties are of central importance to materials sciences, in particular if they depend on external stimuli. Here we investigate the rheological response of amorphous solids, namely col- loidal glasses, to external forces. Using…

Simulations are used to examine the microscopic origins of strain hardening in polymer glasses. While stress-strain curves for a wide range of temperature can be fit to the functional form predicted by entropic network models, many other…

The richness of the mean-field solution of simple glasses leaves many of its features challenging to interpret. A minimal model that illuminates glass physics the same way the random energy model clarifies spin glass behavior would…

I describe a class of spin models with short--range plaquette interactions whose static equilibrium properties are trivial but which display glassy dynamics at low temperatures. These models have a dual description in terms of free defects…

We perform kinetic Monte Carlo simulations of a distinguishable-particle lattice model of structural glasses with random particle interactions. By varying the interaction distribution and the average particle hopping energy barrier, we…

The structure of interactions in most of animals and human societies can be best represented by complex hierarchical networks. In order to maintain close to optimal functioning both stability and adaptability are necessary. Here we…

We present a realistic model of the fragile glass former orthoterphenyl and the results of extensive molecular dynamics simulations in which we investigated its basic static and dynamic properties. In this model the internal molecular…

The theory of elastic rods can be used to describe certain geometric and topological properties of the DNA molecules. A similar effective field theory approach was previously suggested to describe the conformations and dynamics of proteins.…

Ion-exchange is commonly used to chemically strengthen glasses, by replacing small atoms by larger ones at sub T$_g$ temperature, thereby inducing a compressive stress. However, the resulting expansion of the glass remains lower than that…

The relaxation dynamics of many disordered systems, such as structural glasses, proteins, granular materials or spin glasses, is not completely frozen even at very low temperatures. This residual motion leads to a change of the properties…

The formation of quasi-spherical cages from protein building blocks is a remarkable self-assembly process in many natural systems, where a small number of elementary building blocks are assembled to build a highly symmetric icosahedral…

Protein folding is analyzed using a replica variational formalism to investigate some free energy landscape characteristics relevant for dynamics. A random contact interaction model that satisfies the minimum frustration principle is used…

Spin glasses, generally defined as disordered systems with randomized competing interactions, are a widely investigated complex system. Theoretical models describing spin glasses are broadly used in other complex systems, such as those…

A conceptual difficulty in the Hooke's-law description of ideal Gaussian polymer-chain elasticity is sometimes apparent in analyses of experimental data or in physical models designed to simulate the behavior of biopolymers. The problem,…

Molecular dynamics simulations are performed to investigate heterogeneous dynamics in amorphous glassy materials under oscillatory shear strain. We consider three-dimensional binary Lennard-Jones mixture well below the glass transition…

We analyze a simple dynamical model of glasses, based on the idea that each particle is trapped in a local potential well, which itself evolves due to hopping of neighbouring particles. The glass transition is signalled by the fact that the…

We propose a novel computational strategy to study the glass transition of molecular fluids. Our approach combines the construction of simple yet realistic models with the development of Monte Carlo algorithms to accelerate equilibration…

Dynamical heterogeneities have been introduced in the context of the glass transition of molecular liquids and the lengthscale associated with them has been argued to be at the origin of the observed quasi-universal behaviour of glassy…