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Phys. Rev. B 78, 224306 (2008) [19 pages]

Theory of the superglass phase

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Giulio Biroli1, Claudio Chamon2, and Francesco Zamponi3
1Institut de Physique Théorique, CEA, IPhT, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France and CNRS, URA 2306, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
2Physics Department, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
3Laboratoire de Physique Théorique, École Normale Supérieure, CNRS-UMR 8549, 24 Rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France

Received 22 July 2008; revised 28 September 2008; published 8 December 2008

See accompanying Physics Viewpoint

A superglass is a phase of matter which is characterized at the same time by superfluidity and a frozen amorphous structure. We introduce a model of interacting bosons in three dimensions that displays this phase unambiguously and that can be analyzed exactly or using controlled approximations. Employing a mapping between quantum Hamiltonians and classical Fokker-Planck operators, we show that the ground-state wave function of the quantum model is proportional to the Boltzmann measure of classical hard spheres. This connection allows us to obtain quantitative results on static and dynamic quantum correlation functions. In particular, by translating known results on the glassy dynamics of Brownian hard spheres we work out the properties of the superglass phase and of the quantum phase transition between the superfluid and the superglass phase.

© 2008 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.78.224306
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevB.78.224306
PACS:
61.43.Fs, 05.30.Jp, 67.80.K−