Related papers: Absence of Thermodynamic Phase Transition in a Mod…
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…
Key to resolving the scientific challenge of the glass transition is to understand the origin of the massive increase in viscosity of liquids cooled below their melting temperature (avoiding crystallisation). A number of competing and often…
The glass transition refers to the non-equilibrium process by which an equilibrium liquid is transformed to a non-equilibrium disordered solid, or vice versa. Associated response functions, such as heat capacities, are markedly different on…
We study the thermodynamic and dynamic phase transitions in two-dimensional polydisperse hard disks using Monte Carlo methods. A conventional local Monte Carlo algorithm allows us to observe a dynamic liquid-glass transition at a density,…
The glass transition is considered as a phase transition in the system of topologically protected excitations in matter structure. The critical behavior of the system is considered both in statics and dynamics cases. It is shown in the…
When a liquid is cooled below its melting temperature, if crystallization is avoided, it forms a glass. This phenomenon, called glass transition, is characterized by a marked increase of viscosity, about 14 orders of magnitude, in a narrow…
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…
Tackling the low-temperature fate of supercooled liquids is challenging due to the immense timescales involved, which prevent equilibration and lead to the operational glass transition. Relating glassy behaviour to an underlying,…
Topological defects are typically quantified relative to ordered backgrounds. The importance of these defects to the understanding of physical phenomena including diverse equilibrium melting transitions from low temperature ordered to…
The idea that a thermodynamic glass transition of some sort underlies the observed glass formation has been highly debated since Kauzmann first stressed the hypothetical entropy crisis that could take place if one were able to equilibrate…
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…
Glass-to-glass and liquid-to-liquid phase transitions were observed many years ago in bulk and confined water with or without applied pressure. It is shown that they result from the competition of two-liquid phases separated by an enthalpy…
The glass transition is considered within two toys models, a mean field spin glass and a directed polymer in a correlated random potential. In the spin glass model there occurs a dynamical transition, where the system condenses in a state…
Due to nonuniform aggregation in liquid state, from the thermodynamic point of view any glass-forming liquid in the vicinity of the liquid-to-solid phase transition temperature, irrespective of its actual chemical composition, shall be…
The metastable states of a glass are counted by adding a weak pinning field which explicitly breaks the ergodicity. Their entropy, that is the logarithm of their number, is extensive in a range of temperatures $T_G < T < T_C$ only, where…
The glass transition, extensively studied in dense fluids, polymers, or colloids, corresponds to a dramatic evolution of equilibrium transport coefficients upon a modest change of control parameter, like temperature or pressure. A similar…
Thermodynamic multi-component solution solidification approach to liquid-to-glass transition is proposed and actual mechanisms underlying vitrification, other than viscous slowdown, are identified. Due to polydisperse aggregation in liquid…
We provide a theoretical perspective on the glass transition in molecular liquids at thermal equilibrium, on the spatially heterogeneous and aging dynamics of disordered materials, and on the rheology of soft glassy materials. We start with…
As one increases the concentration of a colloidal suspension, the system exhibits a dramatic increase in viscosity. Structurally, the system resembles a liquid, yet motions within the suspension are slow enough that it can be considered…
We divide glass and viscous liquid sciences into two major research areas, the first dealing with how to avoid crystals and so access the viscous liquid state, and the second dealing with how liquids behave when no crystals form. We review…