Dynamical coexistence in moderately polydisperse hard-sphere glasses

TL;DR

This study uses extensive simulations of a polydisperse hard-sphere glass model to reveal a dynamical phase transition characterized by coexistence of liquid-like and glassy-like trajectories, with evidence of a critical point.

Contribution

It demonstrates a dynamical-structural phase transition in a glass-forming fluid, supported by finite-size scaling and Binder's theory, highlighting coexistence and a possible critical point.

Findings

Identification of a dynamical phase transition with coexistence of phases

Finite-size scaling analysis confirms a first-order transition

Evidence suggests a critical point at higher densities

Abstract

We perform extensive numerical simulations of a paradigmatic model glass former, the hard-sphere fluid with 10% polydispersity. We sample from the ensemble of trajectories with fixed observation time, whereby single trajectories are generated by event-driven molecular dynamics. We show that these trajectories can be characterized in terms of local structure, and we find a dynamical-structural (active-inactive) phase transition between two dynamical phases: one dominated by liquid-like trajectories with low degree of local order and one dominated by glassy-like trajectories with a high degree of local order. We show that both phases coexist and are separated by a spatiotemporal interface. Sampling exceptionally long trajectories allows to perform a systematic finite-size scaling analysis. We find excellent agreement with Binder's scaling theory for first-order transitions. Interestingly, the coexistence region narrows at higher densities, supporting the idea of a critical point controlling the dynamic arrest.