Correlation length for amorphous systems

Abstract

Crystals and quasicrystals can be characterized by an order that is a purely geometric property of an instantaneous configuration, independent of particle dynamics or interactions. Glasses, on the other hand, are ostensibly amorphous arrangements of particles. A natural and long-standing question has been whether they too have, albeit in a hidden way, some form of geometric order. Here we define a coherence length that applies to systems which are typically characterized as amorphous, as well as to those that are conventionally ordered. We argue that the divergence of such a length is consistent with current theories of the `ideal' glass transition.