The One Glass Transition Criterion for Liquids

Doklady Physics - In this communication, a condition based on the deactivation of the trigger mechanism of creep is proposed for the liquid–glass transition of an amorphous substance. This...     

Reconstruction on Trees and Spin Glass Transition

Consider an information source generating a symbol at the root of a tree network whose links correspond to noisy communication channels, and broadcasting it through the network. We study the problem of reconstructing the transmitted symbol from the information received at the leaves. In the large system limit, reconstruction is possible when the channel noise is smaller than a threshold.We show that this threshold coincides with the dynamical (replica symmetry breaking) glass transition for an associated statistical physics problem. Motivated by this correspondence, we derive a variational principle which implies new rigorous bounds on the reconstruction threshold. Finally, we apply a standard numerical procedure used in statistical physics, to predict the reconstruction thresholds in various channels. In particular, we prove a bound on the reconstruction problem for the antiferromagnetic “Potts” channels, which implies, in the noiseless limit, new results on random proper colorings of infinite regular trees.This relation to the reconstruction problem also offers interesting perspective for putting on a clean mathematical basis the theory of glasses on random graphs. PACS: 02.50.−r (Probability theory, stochastic processes, and statistics), 64.70.Pf (Glass transitions), 89.75.Hc (Networks and genealogical trees)     

Ferromagnetic to Paramagnetic Transition in Spherical Spin Glass

Journal of Statistical Physics - We consider the spherical spin glass model defined by a combination of the pure 2-spin spherical Sherrington–Kirkpatrick Hamiltonian and the ferromagnetic...     

The Percolation Signature of the Spin Glass Transition

Magnetic ordering at low temperature for Ising ferromagnets manifests itself within the associated Fortuin–Kasteleyn (FK) random cluster representation as the occurrence of a single positive density percolating network. In this paper we investigate the percolation signature for Ising spin glass ordering—both in short-range (EA) and infinite-range (SK) models—within a two-replica FK representation and also within the different Chayes–Machta–Redner two-replica graphical representation. Based on numerical studies of the ±J EA model in three dimensions and on rigorous results for the SK model, we conclude that the spin glass transition corresponds to the appearance of two percolating clusters of unequal densities.     

Generalized Kinetic Criterion of the Liquid–Glass Transition

Physics of the Solid State - Justification and generalization of the glass transition criterion of Schmelzer is proposed with the involvement of the model of delocalized atoms. Unlike the...     

活性-非活性二元混合体系玻璃化转变的模耦合理论

Collective behaviours of active particle systems have gained great research attentions in recent years. Here we present a mode-coupling theory (MCT) framework to study the glass transition of a mixture system of active and passive Brownian particles. The starting point is an effective Smoluchowski equation, which governs the dynamics of the probability distribution function in the position phase space. With the assumption of the existence of a nonequilibrium steady state, we are able to obtain dynamic equations for the intermediate scattering functions (ISFs), wherein an irreducible memory function is introduced which in turn can be written as functions of the ISFs based on standard mode-coupling approximations. The effect of particle activity is included through an effective diffusion coefficient which can be obtained via short time simulations. By calculating the long-time limit of the ISF, the Debye-Waller (DW) factor, one can determine the critical packing fraction η_c of glass transition. We find that for active-passive (AP) mixtures with the same particle sizes, η_c increases as the partial fraction of active particle x_A increases, which is in agreement with previous simulation works. For system with different active/passive particle sizes, we find an interesting reentrance behaviour of glass transition, i.e., η_c shows a non-monotonic dependence on x_A. In addition, such a reentrance behaviour would disappear if the particle activity is large enough. Our results thus provide a useful theoretical scheme to study glass transition behaviour of active-passive mixture systems in a promising way.     

On the Dynamics of the Glass Transition on Bethe Lattices

The Glauber dynamics of disordered spin models with multi-spin interactions on sparse random graphs (Bethe lattices) is investigated. Such models undergo a dynamical glass transition upon decreasing the temperature or increasing the degree of constrainedness. Our analysis is based upon a detailed study of large scale rearrangements which control the slow dynamics of the system close to the dynamical transition. Particular attention is devoted to the neighborhood of a zero temperature tricritical point. Both the approach and several key results are conjectured to be valid in a considerably more general context. PACS Numbers:75.50.Lk (Spin glasses), 64.70.Pf (Glass transitions), 89.20.Ff (Computer science     

A New Class of Cellular Automata with a Discontinuous Glass Transition

We introduce a new class of two-dimensional cellular automata with a bootstrap percolation-like dynamics. Each site can be either empty or occupied by a single particle and the dynamics follows a deterministic updating rule at discrete times which allows only emptying sites. We prove that the threshold density ρ _c for convergence to a completely empty configuration is non trivial, 0<ρ _c <1, contrary to standard bootstrap percolation. Furthermore we prove that in the subcritical regime, ρ<ρ _c , emptying always occurs exponentially fast and that ρ _c coincides with the critical density for two-dimensional oriented site percolation on ℤ². This is known to occur also for some cellular automata with oriented rules for which the transition is continuous in the value of the asymptotic density and the crossover length determining finite size effects diverges as a power law when the critical density is approached from below. Instead for our model we prove that the transition is discontinuous and at the same time the crossover length diverges faster than any power law. The proofs of the discontinuity and the lower bound on the crossover length use a conjecture on the critical behaviour for oriented percolation. The latter is supported by several numerical simulations and by analytical (though non rigorous) works through renormalization techniques. Finally, we will discuss why, due to the peculiar mixed critical/first order character of this transition, the model is particularly relevant to study glassy and jamming transitions. Indeed, we will show that it leads to a dynamical glass transition for a Kinetically Constrained Spin Model. Most of the results that we present are the rigorous proofs of physical arguments developed in a joint work with D.S. Fisher.     

Glass Transition Behavior and Dynamic Fragility of PMMA-SAN Miscible Blend-Clay Nanocomposites

An investigation of the segmental dynamics and glass transition behavior of a miscible polymer blend composed of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and poly(styrene-ran-acrylonitrile) (SAN) and its melt intercalated nanocomposite by dynamic mechanical analysis is presented. The principle goal was to address the effect of intercalation on local molecular structure and dynamics. The results showed that the intercalation of polymer chains in the galleries of organoclay (Cloisite 30B) led to a lower temperature dependence of the relaxation time (fragility) and activation energy of α-relaxation. Moreover, calculation of the distribution of the segmental dispersion showed a narrower dispersion in the glass transition region so that the Kohlrausch-Williams-Watts (KWW) distribution parameter (β_KWW) increased from 0.21 for neat PMMA to 0.34 for the 50/50 PMMA/SAN blend nanocomposite containing 3 wt% organoclay. Furthermore, the relaxation behavior of the blends showed a negative deviation from mixture law predictions based on the responses of the neat PMMA and SAN. These behaviors were attributed to the lack of specific interactions between the blend components (PMMA, SAN, and nanoclay layers) and the less cooperative behavior, i.e., less constraint for segmental relaxation, of the intercalated chains.     

Ffast Transient Fluorescence Technique to Study Critical Exponents at the Glass Transition

The fast transient fluorescence (FTRF) technique was used to study critical exponents at the glass transition in free-radical crosslinking copolymerization (FCC) for two different monomeric systems, methyl methacrylate (MMA) and styrene (S). Pyrene (P_y ) was used as a fluorescence probe. The fluorescence lifetimes of P_y from its decay traces were measured and used to monitor the gelation process. Changes in the viscosity of the pregel solutions due to glass formation dramatically enhance the fluorescent yield of aromatic molecules. This effect is used to study the glass transition upon gelation of MMA and S monomeric systems as a function of time, at various temperatures and crosslinker concentrations. The results are interpreted in the view of percolation theory. The gel fraction and weight average degree of polymerization exponents β and γ are found to be 0.37 ± 0.02 and 1.66 ± 0.07 in agreement with percolation results.     

Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Cage Effect in the Glass Transition of Argon

The glass transition process of argon is studied by molecular dynamics simulations with Lennard-Jones potential. The cage effect appears at about 24K. The Lindemann length of argon is found to be 0.55A. Two relaxation processes are clearly observed near the glass transition temperature, which is in agreement with the mode-coupling theory.     

压缩CO2中聚合物玻璃化转变温度的实验研究

 玻璃化转变温度（T_g）是聚合物重要的特性参数，压缩CO₂环境中聚合物的玻璃化转变温度的测定，更是超临界流体技术在聚合物科学领域中成功应用的前提条件。根据蠕变柔量实验原理，自建一套测定高压环境下玻璃化转变温度的实验装置。利用该装置对聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯（PET）、聚苯乙烯（PS）、聚氯乙烯（PVC）以及聚甲基丙烯酸甲酯（PMMA）在大气中及压缩CO₂环境中的T_g进行了测定。设定实验的平衡吸附温度为室温，平衡吸附压力范围分别为：PET，0~3.5 MPa；PS，0~11.0 MPa；PVC，0~9.0 MPa；PMMA，0~4.5 MPa。在大气中测定的结果与文献中的结果相吻合，表明所设计的实验方法及实验装置是可靠并有效的，可用于高压环境下聚合物的玻璃化转变温度的测定。从压缩CO₂中的聚合物T_g测定结果可以看出，CO₂对聚合物具有较明显的溶胀、增塑作用，可显著降低聚合物的T_g。     

Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Glass Transition of the Supercooled Zr–Nb Melt

Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics - The glass transition of the supercooled Zr–Nb melt has been investigated by molecular dynamics simulation. The dependence of the critical...     

Estimating the Critical Glass Transition Rate of Pure Metals Using Molecular Dynamic Modeling

Doklady Physics - The critical cooling rates $${{{v}}_{{\text{c}}}}$$ at which pure metals Mg, Al, Ti, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zr, Mo, Pd, Ag, Ta, W, Pt, Au, and Pb transit to an amorphous state (vitrify),...