Giancarlo Jug	— Università degli Studi dell'Insubria - Como  #
The Cellular Model of Glass Structure and of the Glass Transition - Warming Up #
It is widely believed that the atomic structure of amorphous solids, network glasses in particular, is characterized by homogeneous disorder (despite the known Dynamical Heterogeneities above Tg) and, at cryogenic temperatures, is described by the Standard Tunneling Model (two-level systems, linear specific heat). It will be shown that careful consideration of low-T data in real glasses challenges both of these beliefs and that at low-temperatures glasses appear inhomogeneous and organized in quasi-ordered cells that are separated by mobile atoms that give rise to two types of tunneling systems. The cellular model will be shown to provide a new and natural scenario for both the Boson peak and for the glass-transition phenomenology.