C Cammarota et al J. Stat. Mech. (2009) L12002 doi:10.1088/1742-5468/2009/12/L12002
C Cammarota1,2, A Cavagna2,3, G Gradenigo4,5, T S Grigera6,7 and P Verrocchio4,5,8
Show affiliationsWhat is the origin of the sharp slowdown displayed by glassy systems? Physical common sense suggests there must be a concomitant growing correlation length, but finding this length has been nontrivial. In random first-order theory, it is given by the size of amorphous excitations, which depends on a balance between their mutual interfacial energy and their configurational entropy. But how these excitations disappear when crossing over to the normal high temperature phase is unclear, chiefly due to lack of data about the surface tension. We measure the energy cost for creating amorphous excitations in a model glass-former, and discover that the surface tension vanishes at a well-defined spinodal energy, above which amorphous excitations cannot be sustained. This spinodal therefore marks the true onset of glassiness.
64.70.P- Glass transitions of specific systems
64.70.D- Solid–liquid transitions
68.03.Cd Surface tension and related phenomena
65.60.+a Thermal properties of amorphous solids and glasses: heat capacity, thermal expansion, etc.
82C44 Dynamics of disordered systems (random Ising systems, etc.)
82C26 Dynamic and nonequilibrium phase transitions (general)
82D30 Random media, disordered materials (including liquid crystals and spin glasses)
82C35 Irreversible thermodynamics, including Onsager-Machlup theory
Soft matter, liquids and polymers
Issue 12 (December 2009)
Received 22 September 2009, accepted for publication 3 December 2009
Published 21 December 2009
C Cammarota et al J. Stat. Mech. (2009) L12002
Eldad Bettelheim et al 2008 J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 41 392003
E Stern et al 2005 Nanotechnology 16 2941
S Komineas and N Papanicolaou 1998 Nonlinearity 11 265
Igor Pshenichnov et al 2006 Phys. Med. Biol. 51 6099
J S Dowker 1984 Class. Quantum Grav. 1 359
T R Slatyer and C M Savage 2005 Class. Quantum Grav. 22 3833
Florian Baumann et al 2006 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 39 4095
A S Wills et al 2009 J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 145 012056
Martin Valldor et al 2009 J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 145 012076