Giulio Biroli, Jorge Kurchan
Published 2000-05-29, updated 2000-06-26Version 2
Truly stable metastable states are an artifact of the mean-field approximation or the zero temperature limit. If such appealing concepts in glass theory as configurational entropy are to have a meaning beyond these approximations, one needs to cast them in a form involving states with finite lifetimes. Starting from elementary examples and using results of Gaveau and Schulman, we propose a simple expression for the configurational entropy and revisit the question of taking flat averages over metastable states. The construction is applicable to finite dimensional systems, and we explicitly show that for simple mean-field glass models it recovers, justifies and generalises the known results. The calculation emphasises the appearance of new dynamical order parameters.
Comments: 4 fig., 20 pages, revtex; added references and minor changes
Energy and entropy of metastable states in glassy systems
Decay of Metastable States: Sharp Transition from Quantum to Classical Behavior
Does the configurational entropy of polydisperse particles exist?
