Freezing and glass transition of hard spheres in cavities

Dynamical and static properties of N=13-4000 hard spheres in spherical cavities with smooth and rough walls have been calculated by molecular-dynamics computer simulations. We use a dynamical criterion to distinguish between fluidlike and solidlike states. The associated crossover densities show a strong dependence both on the system size and on the surface roughness. For large N, these crossover densities tend to the bulk glass transition density for rough walls and to the bulk crystallization density for smooth walls. The crossover densities for finite N are found to be significantly smaller than the corresponding bulk densities. A detailed examination of the layer-resolved radial- and tangential mean-square displacements reveals qualitatively different dynamics for smooth and rough cavities.