Energy and entropy of metastable states in glassy systems

TL;DR

This paper explores the energy landscape of a 3-D covalent glass model, analyzing its valleys, states, and connectivity to understand glass relaxation and cooling, suggesting universal features in complex systems.

Contribution

It provides a detailed numerical analysis of the energy landscape of a covalent glass model, revealing similarities with other complex systems and implications for glass dynamics.

Findings

Identified the shape and density of valleys in the energy landscape.

Mapped the local density of states and minima.

Highlighted similarities with other complex systems' landscapes.

Abstract

We investigate the multi-valley energy landscape of a 3-D on-lattice network model for covalent glasses, numerically determining the shape of the valleys, the local density of states, the density of minima and the local connectivity. We present some of these quantities in a graphical birds-eye view of the landscape, and discuss their implications for the relaxation dynamics and cooling behavior of glasses. The strong similarities between the landscape of this model and those of other complex systems point to the possibility of a common low-temperature dynamical description.