116 research outputs found
Glass transitions may be similar in 2 and 3 dimensions, after all
This is a commentary on two recent experimental papers in PNAS by Vivek et
al. and Illing et al. that convincingly address an issue at the junction of two
fundamental questions in glass physics: the role of the dimensionality of space
on the glass transition and the possible existence of long wavelength
fluctuations in two-dimensional amorphous solids.Comment: 3-page Commentar
Random-field-like criticality in glass-forming liquids
We introduce an approach to derive an effective scalar field theory for the
glass transition; the fluctuating field is the overlap between equilibrium
configurations. We apply it to the case of constrained liquids for which the
introduction of a conjugate source to the overlap field was predicted to lead
to an equilibrium critical point. We show that the long-distance physics in the
vicinity of this critical point is in the same universality class as that of a
paradigmatic disordered model: the random-field Ising model. The quenched
disorder is provided here by a reference equilibrium liquid configuration. We
discuss to what extent this field-theoretical description and the mapping to
the random field Ising model hold in the whole supercooled liquid regime, in
particular near the glass transition.Comment: 5 pages plus supplementary materia
Decorrelation of the static and dynamic length scales in hard-sphere glass-formers
We show that in the equilibrium phase of glass-forming hard-sphere fluids in
three dimensions, the static length scales tentatively associated with the
dynamical slowdown and the dynamical length characterizing spatial
heterogeneities in the dynamics unambiguously decorrelate. The former grow at a
much slower rate than the latter when density increases. This observation is
valid for the dynamical range that is accessible to computer simulations, which
roughly corresponds to that of colloidal experiments. We also find that in this
same range, no one-to-one correspondence between relaxation time and
point-to-set correlation length exists. These results point to the coexistence
of several relaxation mechanisms in the accessible dynamical regime of
three-dimensional hard-sphere glass formers.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure
Nonperturbative effect of attractive forces in viscous liquids
We study the role of the attractive intermolecular forces in the viscous
regime of a simple glass-forming liquid by using computer simulations. To this
end, we compare the structure and the dynamics of a standard Lennard-Jones
glass-forming liquid model with and without the attractive tail of the
interaction potentials. The viscous slowing down of the two systems are found
to be quantitatively and qualitatively different over a broad density range,
whereas the static pair correlations remain close. The common assumption that
the behaviour of dense nonassociated liquids is determined by the short-ranged
repulsive part of the intermolecular potentials dramatically breaks down for
the relaxation in the viscous liquid regime.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
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