A simple monatomic ideal glass former: the glass transition by a first-order phase transition above the melting point

A liquid can form under cooling a glassy state either as a result of a continuous slowing down or by a first order polyamorphous phase transition. The second scenario has so far always been observed below the melting point where it interfered with crystalline nucleation. We report the first observation of the liquid-glass transition by a first order phase transition above the melting point. The observation was made in a molecular dynamics simulation of a one-component system with a model metallic pair potential. This is also the first observation of a simple monatomic ideal glass former -- a liquid that avoids crystallization at any cooling rate. Besides its conceptual importance, this result indicates a possibility of existence of metallic ideal glass formers.