Free-energy landscape of simple liquids near the glass transition

Dasgupta, Chandan and Valls, Oriol T (2000) Free-energy landscape of simple liquids near the glass transition. In: Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 12 (29). pp. 6553-6562.

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Abstract

Properties of the free-energy landscape in phase space of a dense hard-sphere system characterized by a discretized free-energy functional of the Ramakrishnan-Yussouff form are investigated numerically. A considerable number of glassy local minima of the free energy are located and the distribution of an appropriately defined `overlap' between minima is calculated. The process of transition from the basin of attraction of a minimum to that of another one is studied using a new `microcanonical' Monte Carlo procedure, leading to a determination of the effective height of free energy barriers that separate different glassy minima. The general appearance of the free-energy landscape resembles that of a putting green: deep minima separated by a fairly flat structure. The growth of the effective free-energy barriers with increasing density is consistent with the Vogel-Fulcher law, and this growth is primarily driven by an entropic mechanism.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter
Publisher:	Institute of Physics(IOP)
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to Institute of Physics(IOP).
Department/Centre:	Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Physics
Date Deposited:	30 May 2007
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 04:36
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/10336

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