Glassiness in a model without energy barriers

TL;DR

This paper introduces a microscopic model without energy barriers that replicates key glassy behaviors like slow relaxation and aging, highlighting the role of entropy barriers in glass dynamics.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel microscopic model without energy barriers that explains glassy features, emphasizing entropy barriers' importance in glass behavior.

Findings

Model exhibits slow relaxation and aging.

No thermodynamic transition occurs in the model.

Captures essential features of real glasses.

Abstract

We propose a microscopic model without energy barriers in order to explain some generic features observed in structural glasses. The statics can be exactly solved while the dynamics has been clarified using Monte Carlo calculations. Although the model has no thermodynamic transition it captures some of the essential features of real glasses, i.e., extremely slow relaxation, time dependent hysteresis effects, anomalous increase of the relaxation time and aging. This suggests that the effect of entropy barriers can be an important ingredient to account for the behavior observed in real glasses.