From a Model for Spin Glasses to the Phenomenology of Glasses
Authors: M. Tarzia and M.A. Moore
http://arXiv.org/cond-mat/0609113
Recommended and Commentary by P.W. Anderson, Princeton University | View PDF |
JCCM_October06_01
A monthly correspondence of exciting material in the field of Condensed Matter Physics
Authors: M. Tarzia and M.A. Moore
http://arXiv.org/cond-mat/0609113
Recommended and Commentary by P.W. Anderson, Princeton University | View PDF |
JCCM_October06_01
The paper by Tarzia and Moore relies on a mapping between structural glasses and an Ising spin glass in a field.
This was derived from the previously established connection at the mean field level with Potts spin glasses.
This mapping was developed earlier by Yeo&Moore and Drossel&Moore,as described in the Tarzia-Moore paper.By relying on a Landau expansion this mapping is most accurate near the dynamical transition at what is called Ta-the mode coupling temperature.
A related mapping more accurate far below Ta is to the random field Ising magnet in a field.
This was exploited by Kirkpatrick,Thirumalai&Wolynes and is the basis of treatments under the rubric of random first order transitions.
Admittedly both mappings possess the same symmetries or lack thereof&therefore from a strict phase transition viewpoint are equivalent.
However in the practical regimes of supercooled liquids the predictions based on the fandom first order viewpoint have been taken to a quantitative level for molecular fluids.
The simpler,back-of the envelope aspects of that theory and its comparison to experiment are reviewed inreference 11 of the Tarzia-Moore paper.
They are available in final form on the website of the Annual Review of Physical Chemistry
http://physchem.annualreviews.org.
The reference is V.Lubchenko&P.G.Wolynes,Ann.Rev.Phys.Chem58,235-266(2007).
I suggest that readers who are interested in seeing how one may obtain “the models directly from the molecular structure with fewer gestures’,first look at this paper and papers cited therein.