Increasing the density melts ultrasoft colloidal glasses

We use theory and simulations to investigate the existence of amorphous glassy states in ultrasoft colloids. We combine the hypernetted chain approximation with mode-coupling theory to study the dynamic phase diagram of soft repulsive spheres interacting with a Hertzian potential, focusing on low temperatures and large densities. At constant temperature, we find that an amorphous glassy state is entered upon compression, as in colloidal hard spheres, but the glass unexpectedly melts when density increases further. We attribute this reentrant fluid-glass transition to particle softness and correlate this behavior to previously reported anomalies in soft systems, thus emphasizing its generality. The predicted fluid-glass-fluid sequence is confirmed numerically.