Glasses: a new view from QED coherence

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel QED-based framework that reinterprets glasses as liquids with depleted non-coherent fractions near the glass transition temperature, explaining experimental observations of amorphous water phases.

Contribution

It introduces a new QED coherence perspective to understand glasses, unifying liquid and glass states and explaining phase transitions in amorphous water.

Findings

Glasses are reinterpreted as liquids with near-zero non-coherent fractions near T_g.

The QED theory successfully explains two low-temperature amorphous water phases.

The approach provides a new understanding of the Kauzmann paradox.

Abstract

Faced with the Kauzmann paradox, glasses have always been a puzzle for condensed matter theorists. We show that in a new picture of condensed matter, which takes into account the coherent interaction mechanisms of QED, glasses are nothing but liquids, whose non coherent fraction is highly depleted, very close to zero near T$_g$, the temperature of glass formation. Using the recently developed QED theory of liquid water, we are also able to give a successful account of the surprising finding of two low-temperature water amorphs and of their phase-transition.