Constrained Boltzmann-Gibbs measures and effective potential for glasses in hypernetted chain approximation and numerical simulations

By means of an effective potential associated with a constrained equilibriu m measure and apt to study frozen systems, we investigate glassy freezing i n simple liquids in the hypernetted chain (HNC) approximation. Unlike other classical approximations of liquid theory, freezing is naturally embedded in the HNC approximation. We give a detailed description of the freezing tr ansition that is analogous to the one given in a large class of mean-field long range spin glass. We compare our findings with Monte Carlo simulations of the same system and conclude that many of the qualitative features of t he transition are captured by the approximated theory. (C) 1999 American In stitute of Physics. [S0021-9606(98)51529-2].