Abstract

Predicting the physical properties of amorphous solids, which are out-of-equilibrium and disordered systems, is a theoretical challenge. We perform an extensive analytical and computational exploration of glasses, in particular of their energy landscape. We show that the structure of the landscape depends greatly on how the amorphous solid is prepared. We reveal the existence of two physical regimes. In one regime, relevant to describe dense colloidal suspensions, granular assemblies, and emulsions, the landscape has a hierarchical structure, giving rise to new aging dynamics in amorphous solids. In the other regime, relevant to describe atomic and molecular glasses, the landscape is relatively smoother, with energy barriers correspond to localized defects. The quantum tunneling properties of these defects, relevant to understand the transport properties of glasses around 1 Kelvin, are analyzed.