2009/04/30 by Jorge Kurchan, Kurchan, Jorge, Dov Levine +1 · 1 citation
Materials Science · #Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn) #FOS: Physical sciences #Glass properties and applications #Liquid Crystal Research Advancements #Material Dynamics and Properties
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0904.4850
openalex publication_date 2009/04/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Crystals and quasicrystals can be characterized by an order that is a purely geometric property of an instantaneous configuration, independent of particle dynamics or interactions. Glasses, on the other hand, are ostensibly amorphous arrangements of particles. A natural and long-standing question has been whether they too have, albeit in a hidden way, some form of geometric order. Here we define a coherence length that applies to systems which are typically characterized as amorphous, as well as to those that are conventionally ordered. We argue that the divergence of such a length is consistent with current theories of the `ideal' glass transition.