UCL Discovery

Abstract

We present a novel theoretical approach to understanding the complex dynamics of glass-forming liquids, granular packings and amorphous solids. This theory, which is an elaboration of the free volume and inherent structure approaches, allows one to retrieve the thermodynamical properties of these systems from studies of geometrical and topological properties of local, static configurations alone. When applied to hard-sphere systems, the present theory reproduces with a good quantitative agreement the equation of state for the crystalline and the disordered glassy phases. Moreover, we find that, as the density approaches a critical value close to the random close-packing density, the configurational entropy approaches zero and the large relaxation time diverges according to the Vogel-Fulcher behaviour, following also the Adam-Gibbs relation.