We present a statistical method for complex energy landscape exploration which provides information on the metastable states--or valleys--actually explored by an unperturbed aging process following a quench. Energy fluctuations of record size are identified as the events which move the system from one valley to the next. This allows for a semi-analytical description in terms of log-Poisson statistics, whose main features are briefly explained. The bulk of the paper is devoted to thorough investigations of Ising spin glasses with Gaussian interactions of both short and long range, a well established paradigm for glassy dynamics. Simple scaling expressions with universal exponents for (a) barrier energies, (b) energy minima, and (c) the Hamming distance as a function of the valley index are found. The distribution of residence time inside valleys entered at age $t_w$ is investigated, along with the distribution of time at which the global minimum inside a valley is hit. Finally, the correlations between the minima of the landscape are presented.
The results fit well into the framework of available knowledge about spin glass aging. At the same time they support a novel interpretation of thermal relaxation in complex landscapes with multiple metastable states. The marginal stability of the attractors selected is emphasized and explained in terms of geometrical properties of the landscape.
We discuss the relaxation dynamics of a simple structural glass which has been quenched below its glass transition temperature. We demonstrate that time correlation functions show strong aging effects and investigate in what way the fluctuation dissipation theorem is violated.
This is a Reply to the Comment of Muessel and Rieger cond-mat/9804063 to out paper on ``Aging Effects in a Lennerd-Jones Glass''. We show that the scaling function proposed by Muessel and Rieger does not lead to a satisfactory scaling of our aging data.
We present a detailed study of the scaling behavior of correlations functions and AC susceptibility relaxations in the aging regime in three dimensional spin glasses. The agreement between simulations and experiments is excellent confirming the validity of the full aging scenario with logarithmic corrections which manifests as weak sub-aging effects.
In a recent letter [PRL 78 (1997) 4581] Kob and Barrat reported results of their molecular dynamics simulation of the non-equilibrium dynamics of a binary Lennard-Jones glass. They propose an aging scenario in this system that is close to a t/t_w scaling behavior. In this comment we present new results and show that a different aging scenario, known under the name activated dynamics scaling [i.e. log((t+t_w)/tau)/log(t_w/tau)], describes the aging regime of this kind of glassy systems much better.
We argue that Poisson statistics in logarithmic time provides an idealized description of non-equilibrium configurational rearrangements in aging glassy systems. The description puts stringent requirements on the geometry of the metastable attractors visited at age $t_w$. Analytical implications for the residence time distributions as a function of $t_w$ and the correlation functions are derived. These are verified by extensive numerical studies of short range Ising spin glasses.
We study and discuss rejuvenation and memory (numerical) experiments in Ising and Heisenberg three and four dimensional spin glasses. We introduce a quantitative procedure to analyze the results of temperature cycling experiments. We also run, compare and discuss ``twin'' couples of experiments. We find that in our systems aging is always cumulative in nature, and rejuvenation and memory effects are also cumulative: they are very different from the ones observed in experiments on spin glass materials.
We extend the standard droplet scaling theory for isothermal aging in spin glasses assuming that the effective stiffness constant of droplets as large as extended defects is vanishingly small. A novel dynamical order parameter and the associated dynamical susceptibility emerge. Breaking of the fluctuation dissipation theorem takes place at the dynamical order parameter well below the equilibrium Edwards-Anderson order parameter at which the time translational invariance is strongly broken. The scenario is examined numerically in a 4 dimensional EA Ising spin glass model.
Using molecular dynamics simulations we study the out of equilibrium dynamic correlations in a model glass-forming liquid. The system is quenched from a high temperature to a temperature below its glass transition temperature and the decay of the two-time intermediate scattering function C(t_w,t+t_w) is monitored for several values of the waiting time t_w after the quench. We find that C(t_w,t+t_w) shows a strong dependence on the waiting time, i.e. aging, depends on the temperature before the quench and, similar to the case of spin glasses, can be scaled onto a master curve.
The deviations from full or pure aging behavior, i.e. perfect $t/t_w$ scaling of the correlation and response functions of aging glassy systems, are not well understood theoretically. Recent experiments of Rodriguez et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 037203 (2003)) have shown that full aging applies to the thermoremanent magnetization in the limit of infinite cooling rate during the initial quench. In numerical models, instantaneous thermal quenches can be--and usually are--applied. This has motivated the present numerical investigations of the aging behavior of Edwards-Anderson Ising spin glass mod…
We study the aging dynamics in a model for dense simple liquids, in which particles interact through a hard-core repulsion complemented by a short-ranged attractive potential, of the kind found in colloidal suspensions. In this system, at large packing fractions, kinetically arrested disordered states can be created both on cooling (attractive glass) and on heating (repulsive glass). The possibility of having two distinct glasses, at the same packing fraction, with two different dynamics offers the unique possibility of comparing -- within the same model -- the differences in aging dynamics. W…
We consider a simple model of a structural glass, represented by a lattice gas with kinetic constraints in contact with a particle reservoir. Quench below the glass transition is represented by the jump of the chemical potential above a threshold. After a quench, the density approaches the critical density-where the diffusion coefficient of the particles vanishes-following a power law in time. In this regime, the two-time self-correlation functions exhibit aging. The behavior of the model can be understood in terms of simple mean-field arguments.
We numerically study the non-equilibrium dynamics of the three dimensional Heisenberg Edwards-Anderson spin glass following a sudden quench to its low temperature phase. The subsequent aging behavior of the system is analyzed in detail, and the scaling behavior of various space-time correlation functions is investigated for both spin and chiral degrees of freedom. We carefully compare our results with those obtained from simulations of the more studied Ising version of the model, and with experiments on real spin glasses in which the spins have vectorial character. Finally, the present dynamic…
Using Monte Carlo simulations, we have studied the relaxation of energy of the three-dimensional Ising spin-glass model in aging process. Our finite-size-scaling analysis on the isothermal energy decay after the quench suggests strongly that the energy relaxes by coarsening of domain walls in agreement with the droplet theory. We have also evaluated relaxation times required for spin configurations in small systems, which are regarded as isolated droplets, to flip globally. The results support the fundamental assumption of the droplet theory that coarsening of domain walls, in case of spin gla…
We study the non-equilibrium behavior of three-dimensional spin glasses in the Migdal-Kadanoff approximation, that is on a hierarchical lattice. In this approximation the model has an unique ground state and equilibrium properties correctly described by the droplet model. Extensive numerical simulations show that this model lacks aging in the remanent magnetization as well as a maximum in the magnetic viscosity in disagreement with experiments as well as with numerical studies of the Edwards-Anderson model. This result strongly limits the validity of the droplet model (at least in its simplest…
Out of equilibrium relaxation processes show aging if they become slower as time passes. Aging processes are ubiquitous and play a fundamental role in the physics of glasses and spin glasses and in other applications (e.g. in algorithms minimizing complex cost/loss functions). The theory of aging in the out of equilibrium dynamics of mean-field spin glass models has achieved a fundamental role, thanks to the asymptotic analytic solution found by Cugliandolo and Kurchan. However this solution is based on assumptions (e.g. the weak ergodicity breaking hypothesis) which have never been put under …
We introduce a set of theoretical ideas that form the basis for an analytical framework capable of describing nonequilibrium dynamics in glassy systems. We test the resulting scenario by comparing its predictions with numerical simulations of short-range spin glasses. Local fluctuations and responses are shown to be connected by a generalized local out-of-equilibrium fluctuation-dissipation relation. Scaling relationships are uncovered for the slow evolution of heterogeneities at all time scales.
We show that the dynamical behavior of the 3D Ising spin glass with Gaussian couplings is not compatible with a droplet dynamics. We show that this is implied from the data of reference cond-mat/9904143, that, when analyzed in an accurate way, give multiple evidences of this fact. Our study is based on the analysis of the overlap-overlap correlation function, at different values of the separation r and of the time t.
Aging phenomena of short-range Ising spin glass models have been investigated using Monte Carlo simulations. It is found that in the low-temperature spin-glass phase the mean domain size exhibits a crossover from a power-law growth associated with the critical fluctuation at the transition temperature to slower growth inherent in the low-temperature phase. The temperature dependence of the growth law of the domain size can be almost explained by this crossover. We also find that the spin-autocorrelation function in the quasi-equilibrium regime follows the expected scaling behavior from the dro…
Using RG we investigate the non-equilibrium relaxation of the (Cardy-Ostlund) 2D random Sine-Gordon model, which describes pinned arrays of lines. Its statics exhibits a marginal ($θ=0$) glass phase for $T<T_g$ described by a line of fixed points. We obtain the universal scaling functions for two-time dynamical response and correlations near $T_g$ for various initial conditions, as well as the autocorrelation exponent. The fluctuation dissipation ratio is found to be non-trivial and continuously dependent on $T$.
We review the field of the glass transition, glassy dynamics and aging from a statistical mechanics perspective. We give a brief introduction to the subject and explain the main phenomenology encountered in glassy systems, with a particular emphasis on spatially heterogeneous dynamics. We review the main theoretical approaches currently available to account for these glassy phenomena, including recent developments regarding mean-field theory of liquids and glasses, novel computational tools, and connections to the jamming transition. Finally, the physics of aging and off-equilibrium dynamics e…
Using molecular dynamics computer simulations we investigate the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of a Lennard-Jones system after a quench from a high temperature to one below the glass transition temperature. By studying the radial distribution function we give evidence that during the aging the system is very close to the critical surface of mode-coupling theory. Furthermore we show that two-time correlation functions show a strong dependence on the waiting time since the quench and that their shape is very different from the one in equilibrium. By investigating the temperature and time dependenc…
By using extensive Molecular Dynamics simulations, we have determined the violation of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem in a Lennard-Jones liquid quenched to low temperatures. For this we have calculated $X(C)$, the ratio between a one particle time-correlation function $C$ and the associated response function. Our results are best fitted by assuming that $X(C)$ is a discontinuous, piecewise constant function. This is similar to what is found in spin systems with one step replica symmetry breaking. This strengthen the conjecture of a similarity between the phase space structure of structura…
We study the non-equilibrium aging behavior of the gauge glass model in three dimensions at the critical temperature. We perform Monte Carlo simulations with a Metropolis update, and correlation and response functions are calculated for different waiting times. We obtain a multiplicative aging scaling of the correlation and response functions, calculating the aging exponent $b$ and the nonequilibrium autocorrelation decay exponent $λ_c/z_c$. We also analyze the fluctuation-dissipation relationship at the critical temperature, obtaining the critical fluctuation-dissipation ratio $X_\infty$. By …
In this paper we present a short survey on the concept of effective temperature, on its onset as a glass former vitrifies, on the various definitions in literature and their limits of applicability. An exactly solvable model glass is employed to compare effective temperatures among them and to set a criterion for the occurrence of a universal extra temperature in the framework of a "two temperature thermodynamics" for off-equilibrium aging systems. It will be shown that aging in glass formers is not a sufficient requirement. As an instance, memory effects typical of glasses are not compatible …
We measure the fluctuations of the position of a silica bead trapped by an optical tweezers during the aging of a Laponite suspension. We find that the effective temperature is equal to the bath temperature.
We employ Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the two-time density autocorrelation function for the two-dimensional Coulomb glass. We find that the nonequilibrium relaxation properties of this highly correlated disordered system can be described by a full aging scaling ansatz. The scaling exponents are non-universal, and depend on temperature and charge density.
Motivated by the mean field prediction of a Gardner phase transition between a "normal glass" and a "marginally stable glass", we investigate the off-equilibrium dynamics of three-dimensional polydisperse hard spheres, used as a model for colloidal or granular glasses. Deep inside the glass phase, we find that a sharp crossover pressure $P_{\rm G}$ separates two distinct dynamical regimes. For pressure $P < P_{\rm G}$, the glass behaves as a normal solid, displaying fast dynamics that quickly equilibrates within the glass free energy basin. For $P>P_{\rm G}$, instead, the dynamics becomes stro…
Pinning particles at random in supercooled liquids is a promising route to make substantial progress on the glass transition problem. Here we develop a mean-field theory by studying the equilibrium and non-equilibrium dynamics of the spherical p-spin model in presence of a fraction c of pinned spins. Our study shows the existence of two dynamic critical lines: one corresponding to usual Mode Coupling transitions and the other one to dynamic spinodal transitions. Quenches in the portion of the c - T phase diagram delimited by those two lines leads to aging. By extending our results to finite di…
A novel method for glassy landscape exploration is presented which utilizes a time series of energy values collected during an isothermal relaxation after a thermal quench. A sub-series of increasingly rare events, or quakes, which are connected to an irreversible release of energy from the system, is used to identify entry and exit times for landscape valleys. The landscape of three dimensional spin glasses is studied from this angle for a number of lattice sizes and for a range of low temperatures. A simple picture emerges regarding the temperature and size dependence of (1) the energy barri…
We propose a way to analyze the landscape geometry explored by a glassy system after a quench solely based on time series of energy values recorded during a simulation. Entry and exit times for landscape `valleys' are defined operationally by the occurrence of anomalous energy changes revealed by barrier and energy records. Linking these non-equilibrium events--or `earthquakes'-- to the record statistics of the thermal noise immediately leads to the $\ln t$ relaxation behavior ubiquitous in glassy dynamics. Aging of Ising spin glasses in two and three dimensions is studied as a check for a num…
We construct the equations for the growth kinetics of an aging structural glass within mode-coupling theory through a non-stationary variant of the 3-density correlator defined in Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 97}, 195701 (2006). We solve a schematic form of the resulting equations to obtain the coarsening of the dynamic heterogeneity, characterized via the 3-point correlator $χ_3(t,t_w)$, as a function of waiting time $t_w$. For a quench into the glass, we find that $χ_3$ attains a peak value $\sim t_w^{0.5}$ at $t -t_w \sim t_w^{0.8}$, providing a theoretical basis for the numerical observations of …
We employ Monte Carlo simulations to study the relaxation properties of the two-dimensional Coulomb glass in disordered semiconductors and the three-dimensional Bose glass in type-II superconductors in the presence of extended linear defects. We investigate the effects of adding non-zero random on-site energies from different distributions on the properties of the correlation-induced Coulomb gap in the density of states (DOS) and on the non-equilibrium aging kinetics highlighted by the density autocorrelation functions. We also probe the sensitivity of the system's equilibrium and non-equilibr…
We provide a direct experimental test of the Stokes-Einstein relation as a special case of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem (FDT) in an aging colloidal glass. The use of combined active and passive microrheology allows us to independently measure both the correlation and response functions in this non-equilibrium situation. Contrary to previous reports, we find no deviations from the FDT over several decades in frequency (1 Hz-10 kHz) and for all aging times. In addition, we find two distinct viscoelastic contributions in the aging glass, including a nearly elastic response at low frequenci…
We show numerically that a three-dimensional model for structural glass displays aging, rejuvenation and memory effects when submitted to a temperature cycle. These effects indicate that the free energy landscape of structural glasses may possess the complex hierarchical structure that characterize materials such as spin and polymer glasses. We use the theoretical concept of marginal stability to interpret our results, and explain in which physical conditions a complex aging dynamics can emerge in dense supercooled liquids, paving the way for future experimental studies of complex aging dynami…
Recent experiments and simulations have revealed glassy features in the cytoplasm, living tissues as well as dense assemblies of self propelled colloids. This leads to a fundamental question: how do these non-equilibrium (active) amorphous materials differ from conventional passive glasses, created either by lowering temperature or by increasing density? To address this we investigate the aging behaviour after a quench to an almost arrested state of a model active glass former, a Kob-Andersen glass in two dimensions. Each constituent particle is driven by a constant propulsion force whose dire…
We report a molecular dynamics simulation study of the properties of the potential energy landscape sampled by a system of water molecules during the process of generating a glass by cooling, and during the process of regenerating the equilibrium liquid by heating the glass. We study the dependence of these processes on the cooling/heating rates as well as on the role of aging (the time elapsed in the glass state). We compare the properties of the potential energy landscape sampled during these processes with the corresponding properties sampled in the liquid equilibrium state to elucidate und…
We introduce a simple two-dimensional spin model with short-range interactions which shows glassy behavior despite a Hamiltonian which is completely homogeneous and possesses no randomness. We solve exactly for both the static partition function of the model and the distribution of energy barriers, giving us the equilibration time-scales at low temperature. Simulations of instantaneous quenches and of annealing of the model are in good agreement with the analytic calculations. We also measure the two-time spin correlation as a function of waiting time, and show that the model has aging behavio…
Linear response functions of aging systems are routinely interpreted using the scaling variable $t_{\rm obs}/t_{\rm w}^μ$,where $t_{\rm w}$ is the time at which the field conjugated to the response is turned on or off, and where $t_{\rm obs}$ is the `observation' time elapsed from the field change. The response curve obtained for different values of $t_w$ are usually collapsed using values of $μ$ slightly below one, a scaling behavior generally known as \emph{sub-aging}. Recent spin glass Thermoremanent Magnetization experiments have shown that the value of $μ$ is strongly affected by the form…
We go over our finding that the dynamics at the noise-perturbed edge of chaos in logistic maps is comparable to that observed in supercooled liquids close to vitrification. That is, the three major features of glassy dynamics in structural glass formers, two-step relaxation, aging, and a relationship between relaxation time and configurational entropy, are displayed by orbits with vanishing Lyapunov exponent. The known properties in control-parameter space of the noise-induced bifurcation gap play a central role in determining the characteristics of dynamical relaxation at the chaos threshold.…
Colloidal dispersions of Laponite platelets are known to age slowly from viscous sols to colloidal glasses. We follow this aging process by monitoring the diffusion of probe particles embedded in the sample via dynamic light scattering. Our results show that the time-dependent diffusion of the probe particles scales with their size. This implies that the fluctuation-dissipation theorem can be generalized for this out-of-equilibrium system by replacing the bath temperature with an effective temperature. Simultaneous dynamic rheological measurements reveal that this effective temperature increas…
Molecular dynamics computer simulations of a binary Lennard-Jones glass under shear are presented. The mechanical response of glassy states having different thermal histories is investigated by imposing a wide range of external shear rates, at different temperatures. The stress-strain relations exhibit an overshoot at a strain of around 0.1, marking the yielding of the glass sample and the onset of plastic flow. The amplitude of the overshoot shows a logarithmic behavior with respect to a dimensionless variable, given by the age of the sample times the shear rate. Dynamical heterogeneities hav…
We present a direct experimental measurement of an effective temperature in a colloidal glass of Laponite, using a micrometric bead as a thermometer. The nonequilibrium fluctuation-dissipation relation, in the particular form of a modified Einstein relation, is investigated with diffusion and mobility measurements of the bead embedded in the glass. We observe an unusual non-monotonic behavior of the effective temperature : starting from the bath temperature, it is found to increase up to a maximum value, and then decreases back, as the system ages. We show that the observed deviation from the …
We present evidence in favor of the possibility of treating an out-of-equilibrium supercooled simple liquid as a system in quasi-equilibrium. Two different temperatures, one controlled by the external bath and one internally selected by the system characterize the quasi-equilibrium state. The value of the internal temperature is explicitly calculated within the inherent structure thermodynamic formalism. We find that the internal temperature controls the relation between the response to an external perturbation and the long-time decay of fluctuations in the liquid.
