Arrest and Flow of Colloidal Glasses

Abstract

I review recent progress in understanding the arrest and flow behaviour of colloidal glasses, based on mode coupling theory (MCT) and related approaches. MCT has had notable recent successes in predicting the re-entrant arrest behaviour of colloids with short range attractions. Developments based upon it offer important steps towards calculating, from rational foundations in statistical mechanics, nonlinear flow parameters such as the yield stress of a colloidal glass. An important open question is why MCT works so well.