Structure and Dynamics of Topological Defects in a Glassy Liquid on a Negatively Curved Manifold

Abstract

We study the low-temperature regime of an atomic liquid on the hyperbolic plane by means of molecular dynamics simulation and we compare the results to a continuum theory of defects in a negatively curved hexagonal background. In agreement with the theory and previous results on positively curved (spherical) surfaces, we find that the atomic configurations consist of isolated defect structures, dubbed “grain boundary scars,” that form around an irreducible density of curvature-induced disclinations in an otherwise hexagonal background. We investigate the structure and the dynamics of these grain boundary scars.