Stable glassy configurations of the Kob-Andersen model using swap Monte Carlo

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that modified Kob-Andersen models with swap algorithms can significantly improve the stability of glassy configurations, enabling advanced studies of stable glasses without additional computational cost.

Contribution

The authors develop and optimize swap Monte Carlo strategies for the Kob-Andersen model, enhancing glass stability at no extra computational expense.

Findings

Enhanced mechanical and thermodynamic stability in the KA model.

Observation of a transition towards brittle yielding behavior.

Development of numerical strategies for stability optimization.

Abstract

The swap Monte Carlo algorithm allows the preparation of highly stable glassy configurations for a number of glass-formers, but is inefficient for some models, such as the much studied binary Kob-Andersen (KA) mixture. We have recently developed generalisations to the KA model where swap can be very effective. Here, we show that these models can in turn be used to considerably enhance the stability of glassy configurations in the original KA model at no computational cost. We successfully develop several numerical strategies both in and out of equilibrium to achieve this goal and show how to optimise them. We provide several physical measurements indicating that the proposed algorithms considerably enhance mechanical and thermodynamic stability in the KA model, including a transition towards brittle yielding behaviour. Our results thus pave the way for future studies of stable glasses using the KA model.