A few bubbles in a glass

TL;DR

This paper reviews a theoretical approach to supercooled liquids near the glass transition, modeling their dynamics through a coarse-grained mobility field that reveals an underlying zero-temperature critical point.

Contribution

It introduces a unified framework linking thermodynamic, spatial, and dynamic properties of supercooled liquids via a coarse-grained mobility field approach.

Findings

Identifies an underlying dynamic critical point at zero temperature.

Provides a quantitative description of liquid properties within a single theoretical framework.

Links diverging timescales and lengthscales to the critical point.

Abstract

I briefly review a recent series of papers putting forward a coarse-grained theoretical approach to the physics of supercooled liquids approaching their glass transition. After a suitable coarse-graining, the dynamics of the liquid is replaced by that of a mobility field, which can then be analytically treated. The statistical properties of the mobility field then determine those of the liquid. Thermodynamic, spatial, topographic, dynamic properties of the liquid can then be quantitatively described within a single framework, and derive from the existence of an underlying dynamic critical point located at zero-temperature, where timescales and lengthscales diverge.