Related papers: Glassiness in a model without energy barriers
Despite the extreme simplicity in their definition, spin glasses disclose a wide variety of non-trivial behaviors that are not yet fully understood. In this thesis we try to shed light on some of them, focusing on one hand on the search of…
Recent advances in computational glass physics enable the study of computer glasses featuring a very wide range of mechanical and kinetic stabilities. The current literature, however, lacks a comprehensive data set against which different…
The nature of the glass transition is theoretically understood in the mean-field limit of infinite spatial dimensions, but the problem remains totally open in physical dimensions. Nontrivial finite-dimensional fluctuations are hard to…
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…
Aspects of the dynamical glass transition are considered within a mean field spin glass model. At the dynamical transition the the system condenses in a state of lower entropy. The difference, the information entropy or complexity, is…
In simplified models of glasses we clarify the existence of two different kinds of activated dynamics, which coexist, with one of the two dominating over the other. One is the energy barrier hopping that is typically used to picture…
We propose a scenario for the glass transition based on the cooperative nature of nucleation processes and entropic effects. The main point is the relation between the off-equilibrium energy dissipation and nucleation processes in…
We show numerically that a three-dimensional model for structural glass displays aging, rejuvenation and memory effects when submitted to a temperature cycle. These effects indicate that the free energy landscape of structural glasses may…
We present an approach to approximating static properties of glasses without experimental inputs rooted in the first-principles random structure sampling. In our approach, the glassy system is represented by a collection (composite) of…
This paper gives an introduction and brief overview of some of our recent work on the equilibrium thermodynamics of glasses. We have focused onto first principle computations in simple fragile glasses, starting from the two body interatomic…
In order to understand the long-standing problem of the nature of glass states, we performed intensive simulations on the thermodynamic properties and potential energy surface of an ideal glass. We found that the atoms of an ideal glass…
The axiomatic theory of ideally glassy networks, which has proved effective in describing phase diagrams and many properties of chalcogenide, oxide, and even molecular glasses, is here broadened to describe both geometrical properties, such…
We show that the dynamics between inherent structures in glass forming systems can be understood in purely dynamical terms, without any reference to ``topographic'' features of the potential energy landscape. This ``non-topographic''…
Three different vortex glass models are studied by examining the energy barrier against vortex motion across the system. In the two-dimensional gauge glass this energy barrier is found to increase logarithmically with system size which is…
We introduce and analytically study a generalized p-spin glass like model that captures some of the main features of attractive glasses, recently found by Mode Coupling investigations, such as a glass/glass transition line and dynamical…
An alternative scenario for the glass transition based on the cooperative nature of nucleation processes and the role of entropic effects is presented. The new ingredient is to relate the dissipation during the relaxation process to the…
The dynamical behavior of a kind of models with hierarchically constrained dynamics is investigated. The models exhibit many properties resembling real structural glasses. In particular, we focus on the study of time-dependent temperature…
Glasses feature a broad distribution of relaxation times and activation energies without an obvious characteristic scale. At the same time, macroscopic quantities such as Newtonian viscosity and nonlinear plastic deformation, are…
Typical properties of glassy materials are shown to be captured by a mean-field free-volume theory. Relaxation processes are supposed to be free-volume activated, and different entropy barriers are associated with density relaxation and…
We propose an interacting lattice gas model of structural glass characterized by particle distinguishability and site-particle-dependent random nearest-neighboring particle interactions. This incorporates disorder quenched in the…