Role of free energy landscape in the dynamics of mean field glassy systems

Abstract

In this paper we expose the results of our recent work on the dynamical TAP approach to mean field glassy systems. Our aim is to clarify the connection between free energy landscape and out of equilibrium dynamics in solvable models. Frequently qualitative explanations of glassy behaviour are based on the ``Free Energy Landscape Paradigm''. If its relevance for equilibrium properties is clear, the relationship between free energy landscape and out of equilibrium dynamics is not well understood yet. In this paper we clarify this relationship for the class of spin glass models which reproduce phenomenologically some features of structural glasses. The method we use is a generalisation to dynamics of the Thouless, Anderson and Palmer approach to thermodynamics of mean field spin glasses. Within this framework we show to what extent the dynamics can be represented as an evolution in the free energy landscape. In particular the relationship between the long-time dynamics and the local properties of the free energy landscape shows up explicitly using this approach.