Numerical study of the glass-glass transition in short-ranged attractive colloids

TL;DR

This study uses extensive simulations to explore the glass-glass transition in short-ranged attractive colloids, examining the density autocorrelation and structure factor, and suggests activated processes may prevent a sharp transition.

Contribution

It provides numerical evidence on the behavior of short-ranged attractive colloids near the glass-glass transition, highlighting the role of activated bond-breaking processes.

Findings

Evidence of destabilization of the attractive glass by bond-breaking

No sharp glass-glass transition observed due to activated processes

Dependence of results on waiting time and history

Abstract

We report extensive numerical simulations in the {\it glass} region for a simple model of short-ranged attractive colloids, the square well model. We investigate the behavior of the density autocorrelation function and of the static structure factor in the region of temperatures and packing fractions where a glass-glass transition is expected according to theoretical predictions. We strengthen our observations by studying both waiting time and history dependence of the numerical results. We provide evidence supporting the possibility that activated bond-breaking processes destabilize the attractive glass, preventing the full observation of a sharp glass-glass kinetic transition.