  The reformulation of the mode-coupling theory (MCT) of the liquid-glass
transition which incorporates the element of metastability is applied to the
hard-sphere system. It is shown that the glass transition in this system is not
a sharp one at the special value of the density or the packing fraction, which
is in contrast to the prediction by the conventional MCT. Instead we find that
the slowing down of the dynamics occurs over a range of values of the packing
fraction. Consequently, the exponents governing the sequence of time
relaxations in the intermediate time regime are given as functions of packing
fraction with one additional parameter which describes the overall scale of the
metastable potential energy for defects in the hard-sphere system. Implications
of the present model on the recent experiments on colloidal systems are also
discussed.
