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Physica A 330 (2003) 189­194
www.elsevier.com/locate/physa
Glasses and local packings
Tomaso Astea;, Antonio Conigliob
aApplied Mathematics, RSPhysSE, ANU, Canberra 0200, ACT Australia
bDipartimento di Fisica, UniversitÂa "Federico II", INFM and INFN Napoli, Via Cintia,
Naples 80126, Italy
Abstract
A cell theory for glassforming liquids, amorphous solids and granular packings, is developed by
combining geometrical properties of local packings with the ideas of inherent structures and free
volume theory. We show that for hard-spheres the present theory reproduces well the equation of
state, the approach to zero of the conÿgurational entropy and the divergence of large relaxation
times following both the Vogel­Tammann­Fulcher behavior and the Adam­Gibbs relation.
c 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
PACS: 05.20.-y; 61.43.Fs
Keywords: Glasses; Supercooled liquids; Granular matter; Sphere packings
1. Introduction
Glasses have been described by several valuable theories based on free volume [1],
cooperative rearrangements of particles [2], inherent structures approach [3­5], mode

Source: Aste, Tomaso - Department of Applied Mathematics, Australian National University

Collections: Physics