Ergodicity breaking transition in a glassy soft sphere system at small but non-zero temperatures.

ABSTRACT: While the glass transition at non-zero temperature seems to be hard to access for experimental, theoretical, or simulation studies, jamming at zero temperature has been studied in great detail. Motivated by the exploration of the energy landscape that has been successfully used to investigate athermal jamming, we introduce a new method that includes the possibility of the thermally excited crossing of energy barriers. We then determine whether the ground state configurations of a soft sphere system are accessible or not and as a consequence whether the system is ergodic or effectively non-ergodic. Interestingly, we find an transition where the system becomes effectively non-ergodic if the density is increased. The transition density in the limit of small but non-zero temperatures is indepe

SUBMITTER: Maiti M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5789873 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature