Despite decades of work, gaining a first-principles understanding of amorphous materials
remains an extremely challenging problem. However, recent theoretical breakthroughs have …

The simplicity of hard spheres as a model system is deceptive. Although the particles
interact solely through volume exclusion, that nevertheless suffices for a wealth of static and …

The low-frequency vibrational and low-temperature thermal properties of amorphous solids
are markedly different from those of crystalline solids. This situation is counterintuitive …

Unusual features of the vibrational density of states D (ω) of glasses allow one to rationalize
their peculiar low-temperature properties. Simulational studies of D (ω) have been restricted …

Glassy solids exhibit a wide variety of generic thermomechanical properties, ranging from
universal anomalous specific heat at cryogenic temperatures to nonlinear plastic yielding …

Low-frequency vibrational modes play a central role in determining various basic properties
of glasses, yet their statistical and mechanical properties are not fully understood. Using …

In 1989, Sir Sam Edwards made the visionary proposition to treat jammed granular materials
using a volume ensemble of equiprobable jammed states in analogy to thermal equilibrium …

It is now well established that structural glasses possess disorder-and frustration-induced
soft quasilocalized excitations, which play key roles in various glassy phenomena. Recent …

Note: This Perspective offers a progress report for the Simons collaboration “Cracking the
Glass Problem,” of which the authors are some of the principal investigators. While the …

We study a recently introduced and exactly solvable mean-field model for the density of
vibrational states D (ω) of a structurally disordered system. The model is formulated as a …