Structural Glasses and Supercooled Liquids: Theory, Experiment, and Applications

Sets forth a comprehensive and unified understanding of glassydynamics

Examining theoretical and experimental approaches, this bookoffers current perspectives on the glass transition as well asrelaxations in glassy systems, all based on establishedcharacteristics of the underlying molecular motions deduced byfirst principle theoretical calculations or by direct orsingle–molecule experimental techniques. The authors examine thebroad range of phenomena associated with the structural glasstransition. Moreover, they explore a variety of glassy anddisordered systems, including structural glasses and supercooledliquids, polymers, complex liquids, protein conformationaldynamics, and strongly interacting electron systems with quenchedor self–generated disorder.

Ten carefully researched reviews have been written bytwenty–four leading pioneers and researchers. These reviews werethen carefully edited by two leading experts in physical chemistry,chemical physics, and biophysics. The reviews cover such topicsas

Supercooled liquid dynamics: advances and challenges;

Dielectric spectroscopy of glassy dynamics;

Dynamics in the crossover region of supercooled liquids;

Glassy dynamics of proteins;

Theories of structural glass dynamics: mosaics and jamming.

Each review is filled with detailed calculations and argumentsthat are solidly based on the latest experimental data. Extensivereferences serve as a gateway to the literature.

Structural Glasses and Supercooled Liquids presents a unifiedparadigm of glassy dynamics that enables chemists, physicists,biologists, chemical engineers, and materials scientists to betterunderstand cooperative phenomena in complex fluids, glasses,polymers, proteins, and strongly interacting electronic systemswith disorder.

Contributors xi

1 Supercooled Liquid Dynamics: Advances and Challenges1
Ranko Richert

2 The Random First–Order Transition Theory of Glasses: ACritical Assessment 31
Giulio Biroli and Jean–Philippe Bouchaud

3 Dielectric Spectroscopy of Glassy Dynamics 115
P. Lunkenheimer, M. K¨ohler, S. Kastner, and A.Loidl

4 Glasses and Replicas 151
Marc M´ezard and Giorgio Parisi

5 Glassiness in Uniformly Frustrated Systems 193
M. Dzero, J. Schmalian, and Peter G. Wolynes

6 Random First–Order Phase Transition Theory of theStructural Glass Transition 223
T. R. Kirkpatrick and D. Thirumalai

7 Fragile Glass Formers: Evidence for a New Paradigm, and aNew Relation to Strong Liquids 237
C. Austen Angell

8 Dynamics in the Crossover Region of Supercooled Liquids279
Biman Bagchi

9 Glassy Dynamics of Proteins 319
Guo Chen, P. W. Fenimore, and Hans Frauenfelder

10 Theories of Structural Glass Dynamics: Mosaics, Jamming,and All That 341
Vassiliy Lubchenko and Peter G. Wolynes

Index 381

Peter G. Wolynes, PhD, is the D.R. Bullard–Welch FoundationProfessor of Science at Rice University. For his work, spanningchemical, biological, and condensed matter physics, he was electedto the National Academy of Sciences (USA) and the German Academy ofSciences as well as to the Royal Society of London as a foreignmember.

Vassiliy Lubchenko, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Chemistryat the University of Houston. A recipient of the Beckman YoungInvestigator Award and Sloan Research Fellowship, Dr. Lubchenkoresearches optoelectronic anomalies of amorphous materials,dynamics of complex fluids and structural glasses, and aggregationbehaviors in protein solutions.