Dresden 2017 – scientific programme

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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 66: Glasses and Glass Transition (joint session DY/CPP/DF, organized by DY)

CPP 66.5: Talk

Friday, March 24, 2017, 11:00–11:15, ZEU 118

Dynamical coexistence in a polydisperse hard-sphere liquid — •Matteo Campo^1,2, Christopher Patrick Royall³, and Thomas Speck¹ — ¹Institut für Physik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz, Germany — ²Graduate School Materials Science in Mainz, Germany — ³H.H. Wills Physics Laboratory, University of Bristol, United Kingdom

The glass transition is a long-standing challenge of condensed matter physics. One of the problems is that no significant change in the global structure seems to arise upon vitrification [1]. Recent studies however have recovered the old idea of Frank according to which geometric motifs which minimise the local free energy, so-called locally favoured structures (LFS), would grow in correlation with the slow regions of the glass and thus play an important role in the transition [2]. Among the key insights is the identification of a non-equilibrium phase transition in trajectory space, which implies phase coexistence between a slow phase rich in LFS and the normal supercooled liquid. Here we present a study of a polydisperse hard-sphere model glassformer and its LFS properties upon crystallization [3] and vitrification. We combine our numerical simulations with experimental observations that support the picture of the non-equilibrium phase transition in trajectory space.

[1] Ludovic Berthier and Giulio Biroli. REV MOD PHYS, 2011.

[2] C Patrick Royall and Stephen R Williams. PHYS REP, 2015.

[3] Matteo Campo and Thomas Speck. JSTAT, 2016.