Condensed Matter and Statistical Physics Journal Club
Talk Details
| Title | Pico-canonical ensembles: A theoretical description of metastable states |
| Speaker | Tridib Sadhu |
| Date | Wed, 15 Sep 2010 |
| Time | 14:30 |
| Venue | A 304 |
Abstract
Usually, glasses are considered as systems in metastable states relaxing to equilibrium very slowly. On the other hand, the properties of a piece of diamond, or glass do not change appreciably over a period of days, or years. An experimentalist can put them in a calorimeter, and measure the specific heat, or apply pressure to determine the bulk modulus. But for a theorist, these are non-equilibrium states of matter, and notions like free energy are not "well defined". I will report on a recent paper which shows how the conventional framework of equilibrium statistical mechanics can be extended to include a description of such systems, and look upon glasses not as evolving to equilibrium, but as in equilibrium.
Reference: http://arxiv.org/abs/1008.3011