A note on Kauzmann's paradox

Abstract

The rapid structural and vibrational entropy decrease with decreasing temperature in undercooled liquids is explained in terms of the disappearance of local structural instabilities, which freeze in at the glass temperature as boson peak modes and low temperature tunneling states. At the Kauzmann temperature, their density extrapolates to zero.

Sound absorption in glasses

“…In all six investigated glass formers the barrier density at the barrier height zero is relatively high, comparable to the one of the reversible Kohlrausch tail at the point where it crosses over into the irreversible flow at the glass transition. This result is obviously related to the universality of tunneling states in glasses [5,102,103].…”