Energy Landscape and Overlap Distribution of Binary Lennard-Jones Glasses

TL;DR

This study investigates the overlap distribution of glassy minima in binary Lennard-Jones glasses, revealing a transition in sampling regimes and weak correlations among minima, enhancing understanding of glassy energy landscapes.

Contribution

It introduces a method to generate ensembles of glassy states and analyzes the overlap distribution, highlighting the transition between different sampling regimes and the absence of structured overlaps.

Findings

Transition from broad to narrow state sampling with temperature

No significant structure in overlap distribution

Weak correlations similar to liquid configurations

Abstract

We study the distribution of overlaps of glassy minima, taking proper care of residual symmetries of the system. Ensembles of locally stable, low lying glassy states are efficiently generated by rapid cooling from the liquid phase which has been equilibrated at a temperature $T_{run}$. Varying $T_{run}$, we observe a transition from a regime where a broad range of states are sampled to a regime where the system is almost always trapped in a metastable glassy state. We do not observe any structure in the distribution of overlaps of glassy minima, but find only very weak correlations, comparable in size to those of two liquid configurations.