The Viscous Slowing Down of Supercooled Liquids and the Glass Transition: Phenomenology, Concepts, and Models

TL;DR

This review discusses the phenomenology, key concepts, and models related to the viscous slowdown in supercooled liquids leading to glass transition, highlighting its nature as a jamming process and exploring various theoretical approaches.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the main features, concepts, and models of glass transition as a jamming phenomenon, emphasizing their broader relevance.

Findings

Identifies key features of viscous slowdown and glass transition.

Reviews main theoretical approaches and concepts.

Highlights the universality of jamming processes in physics.

Abstract

The viscous slowing down of supercooled liquids that leads to glass formation can be considered as a classical, and is assuredly a thoroughly studied, example of a "jamming process". In this review, we stress the distinctive features characterizing the phenomenon. We also discuss the main theoretical approaches, with an emphasis on the concepts (free volume, dynamic freezing and mode-coupling approximations, configurational entropy and energy landscape, frustration) that could be useful in other areas of physics where jamming processes are encountered.