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Updated: Jul 24, 2026

Cooling Rate Dependent Ellipsometry Measurements to Determine the Dynamics of Thin Glassy Films
Published on: January 26, 2016
Glassy dynamics and aging in an exactly solvable spin model
1Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501, USA.
Abstract:
We introduce a simple two-dimensional spin model with short-range interactions which shows glassy behavior despite a Hamiltonian which is completely homogeneous and possesses no randomness. We solve exactly for both the static partition function of the model and the distribution of energy barriers, giving us the equilibration time scales at low temperature. Simulations of instantaneous quenches and of annealing of the model are in good agreement with the analytic calculations. We also measure the two-time spin correlation as a function of waiting time, and show that the model has aging behavior consistent with the distribution of barrier heights. The model appears to have no sharp glass transition. Instead, it falls out of equilibrium at a temperature which decreases logarithmically as a function of the cooling time.
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