Thermodynamic description of a dynamical glassy transition

TL;DR

This paper provides a thermodynamic framework for understanding the dynamical glass transition in p-spin models, emphasizing the role of lower states and effective temperatures in aging and specific heat behavior.

Contribution

It introduces a thermodynamic description that accounts for lower energy states accessed during slow cooling, challenging the focus on marginal states.

Findings

Lower states are relevant for thermodynamics during slow cooling.

A system-independent law relates slow modes to specific heat.

Explains t/t_w-scaling in aging dynamics.

Abstract

For the dynamical glassy transition in the $p$-spin mean field spin glass model a thermodynamic description is given. The often considered marginal states are not the relevant ones for this purpose. This leads to consider a cooling experiment on exponential timescales, where lower states are accessed. The very slow configurational modes are at quasi-equilibrium at an effective temperature. A system independent law is derived that expresses their contribution to the specific heat. $t/t_w$-scaling in the aging regime of two-time quantities is explained.