IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v5y2014i1d10.1038_ncomms4725.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fractal free energy landscapes in structural glasses

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick Charbonneau

    (Duke University
    Duke University
    LPT, École Normale Supérieure, UMR 8549 CNRS, 24 Rue Lhomond)

  • Jorge Kurchan

    (LPS, École Normale Supérieure, UMR 8550 CNRS, 24 Rue Lhomond)

  • Giorgio Parisi

    (Sapienza Università di Roma, P.le A. Moro 2
    INFN, Sezione di Roma I, IPFC—CNR, P.le A. Moro 2)

  • Pierfrancesco Urbani

    (IPhT, CEA/DSM-CNRS/URA 2306, CEA Saclay)

  • Francesco Zamponi

    (LPT, École Normale Supérieure, UMR 8549 CNRS, 24 Rue Lhomond)

Abstract

Glasses are amorphous solids whose constituent particles are caged by their neighbours and thus cannot flow. This sluggishness is often ascribed to the free energy landscape containing multiple minima (basins) separated by high barriers. Here we show, using theory and numerical simulation, that the landscape is much rougher than is classically assumed. Deep in the glass, it undergoes a ‘roughness transition’ to fractal basins, which brings about isostaticity and marginal stability on approaching jamming. Critical exponents for the basin width, the weak force distribution and the spatial spread of quasi-contacts near jamming can be analytically determined. Their value is found to be compatible with numerical observations. This advance incorporates the jamming transition of granular materials into the framework of glass theory. Because temperature and pressure control what features of the landscape are experienced, glass mechanics and transport are expected to reflect the features of the topology we discuss here.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick Charbonneau & Jorge Kurchan & Giorgio Parisi & Pierfrancesco Urbani & Francesco Zamponi, 2014. "Fractal free energy landscapes in structural glasses," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 5(1), pages 1-6, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:5:y:2014:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms4725
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms4725
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms4725
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms4725?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sunny Gupta & Xiaochen Yang & Gerbrand Ceder, 2023. "What dictates soft clay-like lithium superionic conductor formation from rigid salts mixture," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-8, December.
    2. Kyeyune-Nyombi, Eru & Morone, Flaviano & Liu, Wenwei & Li, Shuiqing & Gilchrist, M. Lane & Makse, Hernán A., 2018. "High-resolution of particle contacts via fluorophore exclusion in deep-imaging of jammed colloidal packings," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 490(C), pages 1387-1395.
    3. Zhang, Dongjian & Ma, Qihua & Dong, Hailiang & Liao, He & Liu, Xiangyu & Zha, Yibin & Zhang, Xiaoxiao & Qian, Xiaomin & Liu, Jin & Gan, Xuehui, 2023. "Time-delayed feedback bistable stochastic resonance system and its application in the estimation of the Polyester Filament Yarn tension in the spinning process," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    4. Yue Deng & Deng Pan & Yuliang Jin, 2024. "Jamming is a first-order transition with quenched disorder in amorphous materials sheared by cyclic quasistatic deformations," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, December.
    5. Leo Zella & Jaeyun Moon & Takeshi Egami, 2024. "Ripples in the bottom of the potential energy landscape of metallic glass," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-7, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:5:y:2014:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms4725. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.