SciPost Submission Page
Nonlinear modes disentangle glassy and Goldstone modes in structural glasses
by Luka Gartner, Edan Lerner
This Submission thread is now published as
Submission summary
| Authors (as registered SciPost users): | Edan Lerner |
| Submission information | |
|---|---|
| Preprint Link: | http://arxiv.org/abs/1610.03410v2 (pdf) |
| Date accepted: | 2016-12-31 |
| Date submitted: | 2016-12-21 01:00 |
| Submitted by: | Lerner, Edan |
| Submitted to: | SciPost Physics |
| Ontological classification | |
|---|---|
| Academic field: | Physics |
| Specialties: |
|
| Approaches: | Theoretical, Computational |
Abstract
One outstanding problem in the physics of glassy solids is understanding the statistics and properties of the low-energy excitations that stem from the disorder that characterizes these systems' microstructure. In this work we introduce a family of algebraic equations whose solutions represent collective displacement directions (modes) in the multi-dimensional configuration space of a structural glass. We explain why solutions of the algebraic equations, coined nonlinear glassy modes, are quasi-localized low-energy excitations. We present an iterative method to solve the algebraic equations, and use it to study the energetic and structural properties of a selected subset of their solutions constructed by starting from a normal mode analysis of the potential energy of a model glass. Our key result is that the structure and energies associated with harmonic glassy vibrational modes and their nonlinear counterparts converge in the limit of very low frequencies. As nonlinear modes never suffer hybridizations, our result implies that the presented theoretical framework constitutes a robust alternative definition of `soft glassy modes' in the thermodynamic limit, in which Goldstone modes overwhelm and destroy the identity of low-frequency harmonic glassy modes.
List of changes
1. We have fixed the mistake in the caption of Fig.1 (horizontal -> vertical).
2. We have expanded the discussion about the dependence of NGM stiffnesses on their order n.
3. We have expanded in the discussion section on how the mild dependence of NGMs’ structural and energetic properties on their order is, in fact, a strength of our approach and not a weakness, as it is expected to facilitate the construction of detection algorithms of the entire field of NGMs.
4. We have clarified our choice of using the non-affine displacement fields as ancestral modes for calculating NGMs with frequencies in the vicinity of the lowest Goldstone modes’ frequencies.
Published as SciPost Phys. 1, 016 (2016)