Phase diagram of a hard-sphere system in a quenched random potential: A numerical study

The phase diagram in the density-disorder plane of a hard-sphere fluid system was investigated in the presence of a random pinning potential with short-range spatial correlations. Direct numerical minimization was used to study the effects of the presence of a random potential on the minima of a discretized version of the RY free-energy functional for the hard-sphere system. Numerical methods were developed to find the location and structure of the local minima of the same model free energy with the addition of a time-independent, random, one-body potential. Results showed that the liquid to glass transition changes from first to second order as the strength of the disorder was increased.