The liquid-glass transition of the hard-sphere system

Abstract

The mode-coupling theory of the liquid-glass transition is applied to the hard-sphere system. The critical exponents and amplitudes characterising the slow relaxation of density fluctuations in the vicinity of the transition are calculated. Particular attention is devoted to the description of the frozen correlations in the glass and to the critical amplitudes describing the beta -relaxation process. The latter appears to be quite local, involving only rearrangements extending over a few interatomic distances.