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The nature of glassy dynamics and the glass transition are long-standing problems under active debate. In the presence of a structural disorder widely believed to be an essential characteristic of structural glass, identifying and understanding key dynamical behaviors are very challenging. In this work, we demonstrate that an energetic disorder, which usually results from a structural disorder, is instead a more essential feature of glass. Specifically, we develop a distinguishable-particle glassy crystal (DPGC) in which particles are ordered in a face-centered cubic lattice and follow particle-dependent random interactions, leading to an energetic disorder in the particle configuration space. Molecular dynamics simulations in the presence of vacancy-induced particle diffusion show typical glassy behaviors. A unique feature of this molecular model is the knowledge of the complete set of inherent structures with easily calculable free energies, implying a well-understood potential energy landscape. Due to its simplicity, the study of the DPGC provides a promising direction to unlock the mysteries of glass.

This paper has been withdrawn by the author due to need for more improvement., Comment: This paper has been withdrawn

Geometric frustration leads to complex phases of matter with exotic properties. Antiferromagnets on triangular lattices and square ice are two simple models of geometrical frustration. We map their highly degenerated ground-state phase spaces as discrete networks such that network analysis tools can be introduced to phase-space studies. The resulting phase spaces establish a novel class of complex networks with Gaussian spectral densities. Although phase-space networks are heterogeneously connected, the systems are still ergodic except under periodic boundary conditions. We elucidate the boundary effects by mapping the two models as stacks of cubes and spheres in higher dimensions. Sphere stacking in various containers, i.e. square ice under various boundary conditions, reveals challenging combinatorial questions. This network approach can be generalized to phase spaces of some other complex systems.

Geometric frustration arises when lattice structure prevents simultaneous minimization of local interactions. It leads to highly degenerate ground states and, subsequently, complex phases of matter such as water ice, spin ice and frustrated magnetic materials. Here we report a simple geometrically frustrated system composed of closely packed colloidal spheres confined between parallel walls. Diameter-tunable microgel spheres are self-assembled into a buckled triangular lattice with either up or down displacements analogous to an antiferromagnetic Ising model on a triangular lattice. Experiment and theory reveal single-particle dynamics governed by in-plane lattice distortions that partially relieve frustration and produce ground-states with zigzagging stripes and subextensive entropy, rather than the more random configurations and extensive entropy of the antiferromagnetic Ising model. This tunable soft matter system provides an uncharted arena in which the dynamics of frustration, thermal excitations and defects can be directly visualized., Comment: (*) These authors contributed equally to this work. Main Text: 6 pages, 5 figures. Supplementary Information and Online Movies available at http://www.physics.upenn.edu/~yair/frustration.html

Charge-stabilized colloidal spheres dispersed in deionized water are supposed to repel each other. Instead, artifact-corrected video microscopy measurements reveal an anomalous long-ranged like-charge attraction in the interparticle pair potential when the spheres are confined to a layer by even a single charged glass surface. These attractions can be masked by electrostatic repulsions at low ionic strengths. Coating the bounding surfaces with a conducting gold layer suppresses the attraction. These observations suggest a possible mechanism for confinement-induced attractions., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures

We demonstrate that the configurational temperature formalism can be derived from the classical hypervirial theorem, and introduce a hierarchy of hyperconfigurational temperature definitions, which are particularly well suited for experimental studies. We then use these analytical tools to probe the electrostatic interactions in monolayers of charge-stabilized colloidal spheres confined by parallel glass surfaces. The configurational and hyperconfigurational temperatures, together with a novel thermodynamic sum rule, provide previously lacking self-consistency tests for interaction measurements based on digital video microscopy, and thereby cast new light on controversial reports of confinement-induced like-charge attractions. We further introduce a new method for measuring the pair potential directly that uses consistency of the configurational and hyperconfigurational temperatures as a set of constraints for a model-free search., Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures, submitted to J. Chem. Phys

Recent theoretical advances show that the temperature of a system in equilibriumcan be measured from static snapshots of its constituents' instantaneous configurations, withoutregard to their dynamics. We report the first measurements of the configurational temperature in an experimental system. In particular, we introduce a hierarchy of hyperconfigurational temperature definitions, which we use to analyze monolayers of charge-stabilized colloidal spheres. Equality of the hyperconfigurational and bulk thermodynamic temperatures provides previously lacking thermodynamic self-consistency checks for the measured colloidal pair potentials, and thereby casts new light on anomalous like-charge colloidal attractions induced by geometric confinement., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures