Dynamic heterogeneity and the emergence of a growing length scale at the glass transition
Abstract Book of the XXIII IUPAP International Conference on Statistical Physics, Genova, Italy, (9-13 July 2007)Abstract
Is the glass transition merely a crossover with little
or no universality? Or, instead, is it related to a true underlying
phase transition, of a new kind? Recent experimental and numerical
works,
to a large extent triggered by new theoretical tools and concepts,
unveiled that the dynamics becomes increasingly spatially correlated
and heterogeneous on approaching the glass transition, thus strongly
suggesting a positive answer to this last question. Concomitantly,
theoretical predictions aimed to explain these dynamical correlations
in terms of critical phenomena have been developed and started to be
tested in detail.
In this talk I shall present these new results focusing in
particular on
a field-theoretical approach to dynamical correlations in glassy
systems and
its corresponding predictions, especially within the framework of
Mode-Coupling-Theory. I shall also explain how these results have
opened
the way to a direct measurement of growing dynamic correlation lengths
close to the glass transition.