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Published Online February 5, 2009
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1166665

Research Articles

Submitted on October 1, 2008
Accepted on January 22, 2009

Dynamic Order-Disorder in Atomistic Models of Structural Glass Formers

Lester O. Hedges 1{dagger}, Robert L. Jack 2{dagger}, Juan P. Garrahan 3, David Chandler 1*

1 Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720-1460, USA.
2 Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720-1460, USA.; Department of Physics, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK.
3 School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
David Chandler , E-mail: chandler{at}cchem.berkeley.edu

{dagger}These authors contributed equally to this work.

The glass transition is the freezing of a liquid into a solid state without evident structural order. While glassy materials are well characterized experimentally, the existence of a phase transition into the glass state remains controversial. Here, we present numerical evidence for the existence of a novel first-order dynamical phase transition in atomistic models of structural glass formers. In contrast to equilibrium phase transitions, which occur in configuration space, this transition occurs in trajectory space, and it is controlled by variables that drive the system out of equilibrium. Coexistence is established between an ergodic phase with finite relaxation time and a non-ergodic phase of immobile molecular configurations. Thus, we connect the glass transition to a true phase transition, offering the possibility of a unified picture of glassy phenomena.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Liquids and Structural Glasses Special Feature: Anomalous yet Brownian.
B. Wang, S. M. Anthony, S. C. Bae, and S. Granick (2009)
PNAS 106, 15160-15164
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)