Related papers: Logarithmic coarsening and glassy behavior in a po…
This study reports a general scenario for the out-of-equilibrium features of collapsing polymeric architectures. We use molecular dynamics simulations to characterize the coarsening kinetics, in bad solvent, for several macromolecular…
The far-from-equilibrium dynamics of glassy systems share important phenomenological traits. A transition is generally observed from a time-homogeneous dynamical regime to an aging regime where physical changes occur intermittently and, on…
We investigate, using numerical simulations and analytical arguments, a simple one dimensional model for the swelling or the collapse of a closed polymer chain of size N, representing the dynamical evolution of a polymer in a \Theta-solvent…
Understanding how topological constraints affect the dynamics of polymers in solution is at the basis of any polymer theory and it is particularly needed for melts of rings. These polymers fold as crumpled and space-filling objects and,…
To study the cooling behavior and the glass transition of polymer melts in bulk and with free surfaces a coarse-grained weakly semi-flexible polymer model is developed. Based on a standard bead spring model with purely repulsive…
Glassy polymers show strain hardening: at constant extensional load, their flow first accelerates, then arrests. Recent experiments under such loading have found this to be accompanied by a striking dip in the segmental relaxation time.…
The dynamics of dislocations is reported to exhibit glassy properties. We study numerically various versions of 2d edge dislocation systems in the absence of externally applied stress. Two types of glassy behavior are identified: (i)…
We show that non-entangled polymers display an elastic-like behaviour at a macroscopic scale (probed at some 0.100 mm thickness) up to at least hundred degrees above the glass transition temperature. This observation, found under…
Via event-driven molecular dynamics simulations we study kinetics of clustering in assemblies of inelastic particles in various space dimensions. We consider two models, viz., the ballistic aggregation model (BAM) and the freely cooling…
Large scale molecular dynamics and grand canonical Monte Carlo simulation techniques are used to study the behavior of the interdiffusion of a solvent into an entangled polymer matrix as the state of the polymer changes from a melt to a…
Ring polymers are an intriguing class of polymers with unique physical properties, and understanding their behavior is important for developing accurate theoretical models. In this study, we investigate the effect of chain stiffness and…
A sheet of glassy polymers placed in a solvent shows swelling behaviors quite different from that of soft polymers (rubbers and gels). (1) Non-Fickian diffusion (called case II diffusion): As solvent permeates into the sample, a sharp front…
We explore the nature of glass-formation in variable spatial dimensionality ($d$) based on the generalized entropy theory, a synthesis of the Adam-Gibbs model with direct computation of the configurational entropy of polymer fluids using an…
We investigate the diffusion of particles in an attractive one-dimensional potential that grows logarithmically for large $|x|$ using the Fokker-Planck equation. An eigenfunction expansion shows that the Boltzmann equilibrium density does…
A theoretical analysis [Angelani et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 065702 (2006)] predicts glassy behaviour of light in a nonlinear random medium. This implies slow dynamics related to the presence of many metastable states. We consider very…
In a recent publication we established an analogy between the free energy of a hard sphere system and the energy of an elastic network [1]. This result enables one to study the free energy landscape of hard spheres, in particular to define…
We study a kinetically constrained lattice glass model in which continuous local densities are randomly redistributed on neighbouring sites with a kinetic constraint that inhibits the process at high densities, and a random bias accounting…
Disordered materials under an imposed forcing can display creep and aging effects, accompanied by intermittent, spatially heterogeneous dynamics. We propose a unifying microscopic description of these phenomena, based on the notion that as…
Many glass-forming fluids exhibit a remarkable thermodynamic scaling in which dynamic properties, such as the viscosity, the relaxation time, and the diffusion constant, can be described under different thermodynamic conditions in terms of…
The emergence of nanoscience has increased the importance of experiments able to probe the very local structure of materials, especially for disordered and heterogeneous systems. This is technologically important; for example, the nanoscale…