A Nyquist analysis of glassy dynamics, aging, and discrete basins of attraction in a small system.
The process of attachment of a deformable polystyrene colloidal particle to a planar substrate shows features of slow relaxation and aging, typically observed in many-body disordered and glassy systems. This slow dynamics is attributed to the presence of polymeric tethers constituting a few internal degrees of freedom. The effects of these few degrees of freedom are revealed by a Nyquist analysis of the data that demonstrate the existence of only a few discernible basins of attraction as the system reaches the ground state and thus provides a minimal model of complexity and glassy dynamics.
Department of Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Homi Bhabha Road, Mumbai 400-005, India. prerna@tifr.res.in
Prerna
P
Sharma
Shankar
S
Ghosh
S
S
Bhattacharya