The structural glass transition and the entropy of the metastable states

TL;DR

This paper investigates the entropy of metastable states in glasses, showing it is extensive between specific transition temperatures, and provides a self-consistent calculation for a non-disordered model.

Contribution

It introduces a method to count metastable states using a weak pinning field and computes their entropy explicitly for a non-disordered model.

Findings

Metastable states entropy is extensive between T_G and T_C.

Entropy calculation is self-consistent and explicit.

The approach applies to non-disordered models.

Abstract

The metastable states of a glass are counted by adding a weak pinning field which explicitly breaks the ergodicity. Their entropy, that is the logarithm of their number, is extensive in a range of temperatures $T_G < T < T_C$ only, where $T_G$ and $T_C$ correspond to the ideal calorimetric and kinetic glass transition temperatures respectively. An explicit self-consistent computation of the metastable states entropy for a non disordered model is given.