Fig. 2.

The local level libraries in Fig. 1 when thermally averaged yield a free energy profile for rearranging a specific region as a function of the number of displaced particles N. The average mismatch energy is balanced against a term containing the configurational entropy (from averaging over all the states), any initially excess energy frozen into the glass along with a contribution from relaxing strains via reconfiguration in an imposed stress field. The activation barrier is lowered by the imposed stress, eventually vanishing when the stress is sufficiently large, leading to rapid failure of the glass’s structural integrity.