title: Energy landscape of a lennard-jones liquid: statistics of stationary points.
abstract: Molecular dynamics simulations are used to generate an ensemble of saddles of the potential energy of a Lennard-Jones liquid. Classifying all extrema by their potential energy u and number of unstable directions k, a well-defined relation k(u) is revealed. The degree of instability of typical stationary points vanishes at a threshold potential energy u(th), which lies above the energy of the lowest glassy minima of the system. The energies of the inherent states, as obtained by the Stillinger-Weber method, approach u(th) at a temperature close to the mode-coupling transition temperature T(c).
authors.affiliation: Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Gottingen, Bunsenstrasse 9, D-37073 Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Broderix
authors.forename: K K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Bhattacharya
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cavagna
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zippelius
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Giardina