The random first-order transition theory of the structural glass transition is reviewed in a pedagogical fashion. The rigidity that emerges in crystals and glassy liquids is of the same fundamental origin. In both cases, it corresponds with a breaking of the translational symmetry; analogies with freezing transitions in spin systems can also be made. The common aspect of these seemingly distinct phenomena is a spontaneous emergence of the molecular field, a venerable and well-understood concept. In crucial distinction from periodic crystallisation, the free energy landscape of a glassy liquid is vastly degenerate, which gives rise to new length and time scales while rendering the emergence of rigidity gradual. We obviate the standard notion that to be mechanically stable a structure must be essentially unique; instead, we show that bulk degeneracy is perfectly allowed but should not exceed a certain value. The present microscopic description thus explains both crystallisation and the emergence of the landscape regime followed by vitrification in a unified, thermodynamics-rooted fashion. The article contains a self-contained exposition of the basics of the classical density functional theory and liquid theory, which are subsequently used to quantitatively estimate, without using adjustable parameters, the key attributes of glassy liquids, viz., the relaxation barriers, glass transition temperature, and cooperativity size. These results are then used to quantitatively discuss many diverse glassy phenomena, including the intrinsic connection between the excess liquid entropy and relaxation rates, the non-Arrhenius temperature dependence of α-relaxation, the dynamic heterogeneity, violations of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, glass ageing and rejuvenation, rheological and mechanical anomalies, super-stable glasses, enhanced crystallisation near the glass transition, the excess heat capacity and phonon scattering at cryogenic temperatures, the Boson peak and plateau in thermal conductivity, and the puzzling midgap electronic states in amorphous chalcogenides.

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结构玻璃化转变理论：教学评论

以教学方式回顾了结构玻璃化转变的随机一阶转变理论。晶体和玻璃状液体中出现的刚性具有相同的基本起源。在这两种情况下，它对应于平移对称性的破坏；也可以与自旋系统中的冻结跃迁进行类比。这些看似不同的现象的共同方面是分子场的自发出现，这是一个古老而易于理解的概念。与周期性结晶的关键区别在于，玻璃状液体的自由能景观极大地退化，这会产生新的长度和时间尺度，同时逐渐呈现刚性。我们排除了一个标准的概念，即结构的机械稳定性必须本质上是独一无二的；反而，我们表明完全允许批量简并但不应超过某个值。因此，目前的微观描述以统一的、基于热力学的方式解释了结晶和景观体系的出现，然后是玻璃化。这篇文章包含对经典密度泛函理论和液体理论基础的独立阐述，随后用于在不使用可调参数的情况下定量估计玻璃态液体的关键属性，即弛豫势垒、玻璃化转变温度和协同大小。然后将这些结果用于定量讨论许多不同的玻璃现象，包括过量液体熵和弛豫率之间的内在联系，α-弛豫的非阿伦尼乌斯温度依赖性，