The potential energy landscape of a model glass former: thermodynamics, anharmonicities, and finite size effects

TL;DR

This study investigates the potential energy landscape of a model glass former, analyzing thermodynamics, anharmonicities, and finite size effects through systematic variation of system size and temperature.

Contribution

It provides a detailed quantitative analysis of the energy landscape and inherent structures in a simulated glass-forming system, including finite size effects and anharmonic contributions.

Findings

Finite size effects explained by energy landscape properties

Estimated Kauzmann temperature from inherent structures

Characterized anharmonic contributions to thermodynamics

Abstract

It is possible to formulate the thermodynamics of a glass forming system in terms of the properties of inherent structures, which correspond to the minima of the potential energy and build up the potential energy landscape in the high-dimensional configuration space. In this work we quantitatively apply this general approach to a simulated model glass-forming system. We systematically vary the system size between N=20 and N=160. This analysis enables us to determine for which temperature range the properties of the glass former are governed by the regions of the configuration space, close to the inherent structures. Furthermore, we obtain detailed information about the nature of anharmonic contributions. Moreover, we can explain the presence of finite size effects in terms of specific properties of the energy landscape. Finally, determination of the total number of inherent structures for very small systems enables us to estimate the Kauzmann temperature.