Random pinning glass model.

ABSTRACT: Glass transition, in which viscosity of liquids increases dramatically upon decrease of temperature without any major change in structural properties, remains one of the most challenging problems in condensed matter physics despite tremendous research efforts in past decades. On the other hand, disordered freezing of spins in magnetic materials with decreasing temperature, the so-called "spin glass transition," is understood relatively better. A previously found similarity between some spin glass models and the structural glasses inspired development of theories of structural glasses based on the scenario of spin glass transition. This scenario, although it looks very appealing, is still far from being well established. One of the main differences between standard spin systems and molecular systems is the absence of quenched disorder and the presence of translational invariance: it often is assumed that this difference is not relevant, but this conjecture still needs to be established. The quantities, which are well-defined and characterized for spin models, are not easily calculable for molecular glasses because of the lack of quenched disorder that breaks the translational invariance in the system. Thus the characterization of the similarity between spin and the structural glass transition remains an elusive subject. In this study, we introduced a model structural glass with built-in quenched disorder that alleviates this main difference between the spin and molecular glasses, thereby helping us compare these two systems: the possibility of producing a good thermalization at rather low temperatures is one of the advantages of this model.

SUBMITTER: Karmakar S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3581890 | biostudies-other | 2013 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other