Glass Transition in a 2D Lattice Model

Abstract

The dynamics of compaction of hard cross-shaped pentamers on the 2D square lattice is investigated. The addition of new particles is controlled by diffusive relaxation. It is shown that the filling process terminates at a glassy phase with a limiting coverage density ρ_{rcp}=0.171626(3), lower than the density of closest packing ρ_{cp}=0.2, and the long time filling rate vanishes like (ρ_{rcp}-ρ(t))^2. For the entire density regime the particles form an amorphous phase, devoid of any crystalline order. Therefore, the model supports a stable random packing state, as opposed to the hard disks system. Our results may be relevant to recent experiments studying the clustering of proteins on bilayer lipid membranes.