Super-Potts glass: A disordered model for glass-forming liquids

We introduce a disordered system, the super-Potts model, which is a more frustrated version of the Potts glass. Its elementary degrees of freedom are variables that can take M values and are coupled via pairwise interactions. Its exact solution on a completely connected lattice demonstrates that, for large enough M, it belongs to the class of mean-field systems solved by a one-step replica symmetry breaking ansatz. Numerical simulations by the parallel tempering technique show that in three dimensions it displays a phenomenological behavior similar to the one of glass-forming liquids. The super-Potts glass is therefore a disordered model allowing one to perform extensive and detailed studies of the random first-order transition in finite dimensions. We also discuss its behavior for small values of M, which is similar to the one of spin glasses in a field.