No Arabic abstract
We study numerically the glass formation and depinning transition of a system of two-dimensional cluster-forming monodisperse particles in presence of pinning disorder. The pairwise interaction potential is nonmonotonic, and is motivated by the intervortex forces in type-$1.5$ superconductors. Such systems can form cluster glasses due to the intervortex interactions following a thermal quench, without underlying disorder. We study the effects of vortex pinning in these systems. We find that a small density of pinning centers of moderate depth has limited effect on vortex glass formation, i.e., formation of vortex glasses is dominated by intervortex interactions. At higher densities pinning can significantly affect glass formation. The cluster glass depinning, under a constant driving force, is found to be plastic, with features distinct from non-cluster-forming systems such as clusters merging and breaking. We find that in general vortices with cluster-forming interaction forces can exhibit stronger pinning effects than regular vortices.
The relaxations of conductivity have been studied in the glassy regime of a strongly disordered two-dimensional electron system in Si after a temporary change of carrier density during the waiting time t_w. Two types of response have been observed: a) monotonic, where relaxations exhibit aging, i.e. dependence on history, determined by t_w and temperature; b) nonmonotonic, where a memory of the sample history is lost. The conditions that separate the two regimes have been also determined.
We study the thermodynamic and dynamic phase transitions in two-dimensional polydisperse hard disks using Monte Carlo methods. A conventional local Monte Carlo algorithm allows us to observe a dynamic liquid-glass transition at a density, which depends very little on the degree of polydispersity. We furthermore apply Monte Carlo methods which sample the Boltzmann equilibrium distribution at any value of the density and polydispersity, and remain ergodic even far within the glass. We find that the dynamical transition is not accompanied by a thermodynamic transition in this two-dimensional system so that the glass is thermodynamically identical to the liquid. Moreover, we scrutinize the polydispersity-driven transition from the crystal into the disordered phase (liquid or glass). Our results indicate the presence of a continuous (Kosterlitz-Thouless type) transition upon increase of the polydispersity.
Studies of low-frequency resistance noise show that the glassy freezing of the two-dimensional electron system (2DES) in Si in the vicinity of the metal-insulator transition (MIT) persists in parallel magnetic fields B of up to 9 T. At low B, both the glass transition density $n_g$ and $n_c$, the critical density for the MIT, increase with B such that the width of the metallic glass phase ($n_c<n_s<n_g$) increases with B. At higher B, where the 2DES is spin polarized, $n_c$ and $n_g$ no longer depend on B. Our results demonstrate that charge, as opposed to spin, degrees of freedom are responsible for glassy ordering of the 2DES near the MIT.
We show that smectic liquid crystals confined in_anisotropic_ porous structures such as e.g.,_strained_ aerogel or aerosil exhibit two new glassy phases. The strain both ensures the stability of these phases and determines their nature. One type of strain induces an ``XY Bragg glass, while the other creates a novel, triaxially anisotropic ``m=1 Bragg glass. The latter exhibits anomalous elasticity, characterized by exponents that we calculate to high precision. We predict the phase diagram for the system, and numerous other experimental observables.
The elementary topological T1 process in a two-dimensional foam corresponds to the flip of one soap film with respect to the geometrical constraints. From a mechanical point of view, this T1 process is an elementary relaxation process through which the entire structure of an out-of-equilibrium foam evolves. The dynamics of this elementary relaxation process has been poorly investigated and is generally neglected during simulations of foams. We study both experimentally and theoretically the T1 dynamics in a dry two-dimensional foam. We show that the dynamics is controlled by the surface viscoelastic properties of the soap films (surface shear plus dilatational viscosity, ms+k, and Gibbs elasticity e), and is independent of the shear viscosity of the bulk liquid. Moreover, our approach illustrates that the dynamics of T1 relaxation process provides a convenient tool for measuring the surface rheological properties: we obtained e = 32+/-8 mN/m and ms+k = 1.3+/-0.7 mPa.m.s for SDS, and e = 65+/-12 mN/m and ms+k = 31+/-12 mPa.m.s for BSA, in good agreement with values reported in the literature.