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Updated: May 12, 2026

Methods of Ex Situ and In Situ Investigations of Structural Transformations: The Case of Crystallization of Metallic Glasses
Published on: June 7, 2018
Random pinning glass transition: hallmarks, mean-field theory and renormalization group analysis
Chiara Cammarota1, Giulio Biroli
1Institut de Physique Théorique Orme des Merisiers batiment 774 Point courrier 136 CEA/DSM/IPhT, CEA/Saclay F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France.
Abstract:
We present a detailed analysis of glass transitions induced by pinning particles at random from an equilibrium configuration. We first develop a mean-field analysis based on the study of p-spin spherical disordered models and then obtain the three-dimensional critical behavior by the Migdal-Kadanoff real space renormalization group method. We unveil the important physical differences with the case in which particles are pinned from a random (or very high temperature) configuration. We contrast the pinning particles approach to the ones based on biasing dynamical trajectories with respect to their activity and on coupling to equilibrium configurations. Finally, we discuss numerical and experimental tests.
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