Real space renormalization group theory of disordered models of glasses

Abstract

We develop a real space renormalization group analysis of disordered models of glasses, in particular of the spin models at the origin of the random first-order transition theory. We find three fixed points, respectively, associated with the liquid state, with the critical behavior, and with the glass state. The latter two are zero-temperature ones; this provides a natural explanation of the growth of effective activation energy scale and the concomitant huge increase of relaxation time approaching the glass transition. The lower critical dimension depends on the nature of the interacting degrees of freedom and is higher than three for all models. This does not prevent 3D systems from being glassy. Indeed, we find that their renormalization group flow is affected by the fixed points existing in higher dimension and in consequence is nontrivial. Within our theoretical framework, the glass transition results in an avoided phase transition.