Jamming versus Glass Transitions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a model that exhibits both an ideal glass transition and jamming features, helping to clarify the relationship and differences between these two phenomena in amorphous systems.

Contribution

It presents a model where both glass transition and jamming phenomena coexist, enabling direct comparison and understanding of their distinct and overlapping aspects.

Findings

The model exhibits an ideal glass transition.

The model displays jamming features similar to real systems.

It clarifies the relationship between glass transitions and jamming phenomena.

Abstract

Recent ideas based on the properties of assemblies of frictionless particles in mechanical equilibrium provide a perspective of amorphous systems different from that offered by the traditional approach originating in liquid theory. The relation, if any, between these two points of view, and the relevance of the former to the glass phase, has been difficult to ascertain. In this paper we introduce a model for which both theories apply strictly: it exhibits on the one hand an ideal glass transition and on the other `jamming' features (fragility, soft modes) virtually identical to that of real systems. This allows us to disentangle the different contents and domains of applicability of the two physical phenomena.