Freezing, melting and the glass transition in a suspension of hard spheres

When a suspension of hard spheres traverses the freezing volume fraction we find discontinuous changes in the character of the tagged particle density. In particular, the velocity auto-correlation function develops a negative algebraic decay and the fluctuations become subject to interruption. From these, and the exponent of the algebraic growth of the non-Gaussian parameter, the difference in mode of relaxation of the density fluctuations between the stable and metastable colloidal fluids can be quantified. A diagrammatic scheme is proposed that reconciles the dynamics of phase transitions observed in hard-sphere colloids.