Patch-repetition correlation length in glassy systems

TL;DR

This paper investigates the patch-repetition entropy in glassy systems, revealing a crossover length scale related to the configurational entropy density, which offers new insights into the real space structure of super-cooled liquids.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of patch-repetition entropy within RFOT and related models, identifying a key crossover length scale in glassy systems.

Findings

The patch-repetition entropy scales as s_c l^d + A l^{d-1}.

The meaningful length scale is xi = A / s_c, related to static length scales.

The structure of super-cooled liquids may differ from a uniform mosaic.

Abstract

We obtain the patch-repetition entropy Sigma within the Random First Order Transition theory (RFOT) and for the square plaquette system, a model related to the dynamical facilitation theory of glassy dynamics. We find that in both cases the entropy of patches of linear size l, Sigma(l), scales as s_c l^d+A l^{d-1} down to length-scales of the order of one, where A is a positive constant, s_c is the configurational entropy density and d the spatial dimension. In consequence, the only meaningful length that can be defined from patch-repetition is the cross-over length xi=A/s_c. We relate xi to the typical length-scales already discussed in the literature and show that it is always of the order of the largest static length. Our results provide new insights, which are particularly relevant for RFOT theory, on the possible real space structure of super-cooled liquids. They suggest that this structure differs from a mosaic of different patches having roughly the same size.