Mosaic multi-state scenario vs. one-state description of supercooled liquids
Abstract
According to the mosaic scenario, relaxation in supercooled liquids is ruled by two competing mechanisms: surface tension, opposing the creation of local excitations, and entropy, providing the drive to the configurational rearrangement of a given region. We test this scenario through numerical simulations well below the Mode Coupling temperature. For an equilibrated configuration, we freeze all the particles outside a sphere and study the thermodynamics of this sphere. The frozen environment acts as a pinning field. Measuring the overlap between the unpinned and pinned equilibrium configurations of the sphere, we can see whether it has switched to a different state. We do not find any clear evidence of the mosaic scenario. Rather, our results seem compatible with the existence of a single (liquid) state. However, we find evidence of a growing static correlation length, apparently unrelated to the mosaic one.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0607817,
title = {Mosaic multi-state scenario vs. one-state description of supercooled liquids},
author = {Andrea Cavagna and Tomas S. Grigera and Paolo Verrocchio},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0607817},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
4 pages, 3 figures, final version accepted in PRL