Test of nonequilibrium thermodynamics in glassy systems: the soft-sphere case

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2003 Sep;68(3 Pt 1):032103. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.68.032103. Epub 2003 Sep 23.

Abstract

The scaling properties of the soft-sphere potential allow the derivation of an exact expression for the pressure of a frozen liquid, i.e., the pressure corresponding to configurations which are local minima in its multidimensional potential energy landscape. The existence of such a relation offers the unique possibility for testing the recently proposed extension of the liquid free energy to glassy out-of-equilibrium conditions and the associated expression for the temperature of the configurational degrees of freedom. We demonstrate that the nonequilibrium free energy provides an exact description of the soft-sphere pressure in glass states.