Glass Formers Display Universal Non-Equilibrium Dynamics on the Level of Single-Particle Jumps

Authors

J. Helfferich
Katharina Vollmayr-Lee, Bucknell UniversityFollow
F. Ziebert
H. Meyer
J. Baschnagel

Publication Date

2015

Description

Glasses are inherently out-of-equilibrium systems evolving slowly toward their equilibrium state in a process called physical aging. During aging, dynamic observables depend on the history of the system, hampering comparative studies of dynamics in different glass formers. Here, we demonstrate how glass formers can be directly compared on the level of single-particle jumps, i. e. the structural relaxation events underlying the a-process. Describing the dynamics in terms of a continuous-time random walk, an analytic prediction for the jump rate is derived. The result is subsequently compared to molecular-dynamics simulations of amorphous silica and a polymer melt as two generic representatives of strong and fragile glass formers, and good agreement is found. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2015

Journal

EPL

Volume

109

Issue

3

First Page

36004

Department

Physics & Astronomy

Link to Published Version

dx.doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/109/36004

DOI

10.1209/0295-5075/109/36004

Recommended Citation

Helfferich, J.; Vollmayr-Lee, Katharina; Ziebert, F.; Meyer, H.; and Baschnagel, J.. "Glass Formers Display Universal Non-Equilibrium Dynamics on the Level of Single-Particle Jumps." EPL (2015) : 36004.