Evidence for a Disordered Critical Point in a Glass-Forming Liquid

Abstract

Using computer simulations of an atomistic glass-forming liquid, we investigate the fluctuations of the overlap between a fluid configuration and a quenched reference system. We find that large fluctuations of the overlap develop as temperature decreases, consistent with the existence of the random critical point that is predicted by effective field theories. We discuss the scaling of fluctuations near the presumed critical point, comparing the observed behavior with that of the random-field Ising model. We argue that this critical point directly reveals the existence of an interfacial tension between amorphous metastable states, a quantity relevant both for equilibrium relaxation and for nonequilibrium melting of stable glass configurations.