Computer simulations of the glass transition and glassy materials

TL;DR

This paper reviews computational techniques used to study supercooled liquids and glassy materials, summarizing their approaches, key results, and future research directions in understanding the physics of the glass transition.

Contribution

It categorizes and describes four main families of computational methods for glassy systems, highlighting their capabilities and future prospects.

Findings

Summarizes four broad families of computational techniques.

Outlines key questions addressed by each approach.

Identifies future directions for computational glass physics.

Abstract

We provide an overview of the different types of computational techniques developed over the years to study supercooled liquids, glassy materials and the physics of the glass transition. We organise these numerical strategies into four broad families. For each of them, we describe the general ideas without discussing any technical details. We summarise the type of questions which can be addressed by any given approach and outline the main results which have been obtained. Finally we describe two important directions for future computational studies of glassy systems.