Stripe glasses: self-generated randomness in a uniformly frustrated system

Area of Science:

• Condensed matter physics
• Materials science

Background:

• Doped Mott insulators exhibit complex behaviors due to competing interactions.
• Understanding stripe formation is crucial for materials design.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate the origin of glass transitions in systems with competing interactions.
• Characterize the resulting dynamics and emergent states.

Main Methods:

• Theoretical modeling of systems with competing interactions on different length scales.
• Analysis of frustrated interactions and their role in phase transitions.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated a self-generated glass transition in the absence of quenched disorder.
• Identified an exponentially large number of metastable configurations.
• Observed slow, landscape-dominated relaxation dynamics.
• Found a breakup into a disordered inhomogeneous state.

Conclusions:

• Frustrated interactions, not disorder, drive glass transitions in these systems.
• The system self-organizes into a complex, glassy state with slow dynamics.
• This provides a mechanism for stripe formation and inhomogeneity in materials.