Glass- and crystal-forming model based on a granular two-dimensional system.

Abstract

We study a two-dimensional system of magnetic particles under an alternating magnetic field. The particles are settled on the surface of a negative lens where they tend to sediment toward the center due to gravity. The effective temperature is controlled by the intensity of the applied magnetic field. The system is cooled down from a gaslike state to a solidlike state at different rates. We observe that for some slow cooling rates the final configuration of system is a hexagonal compact arrange, while for the faster cooling rates the final configurations are glasslike states. We followed the time evolution of the system, which allows us to determine in detail changes in quantities such as the interparticle distance. We determine the glass transition temperature for different cooling rates, finding that such temperature increases as the cooling rate decreases, in contrast with some other glass-forming liquids.